I first went to >Marinduque in summer of 1997. This is the place my mom considered home at one point in her life. I came back this Holy Week with 5 of my friends. Here are the highlights of my stay at Marinduque.
Marinduque, the island
The back-to-back brochure of the holy week program shows how small Marinduque is. As proof of its size, all the week's major activities in all the towns are listed per day in the same brochure. It likewise shows the places to stay and sites to see. This place is quite quaint that you could see the entire island in 9 hours even by riding a tricycle, or so we were told. Modern amenities such as wifi and cable tv are accessible but this has not altered the generally laid back and serene place that is Marinduque.
Moriones Festival
I stayed in the island from the afternoon of Maundy Thursday to Black Saturday evening. One of the highlights is the Moriones parade on Good Friday. They depicted the carrying of the cross across Boac town.
On the same night, they had the passion play in the town plaza. The program showed that it should start at 7:00 p.m. We were there promptly but felt that we were in the wrong location as there were no people yet. We decided to eat dinner then. After an hour, we went back to the plaza and saw some people fixing the stage and seated in the amphitheater. The show started at 8:20 p.m.
Putting aside biases, we enjoyed the play. The script was well-written. The actors were believable and spoke clearly. As it started late, it wasn't done yet by 10:00 p.m. We were tired and left without seeing the end.
My lola
The following morning, I called up my mom's aunt to tell her I was in Marinduque. I also told her that I would visit her with my friends later in the afternoon after attending church services. When we arrived at her house, I was surprised to find delicious foods: home-cooked pancit, bibingka, biko, and alimasag. Everything tasted so well I even took our leftover food to our resort.
My aunt learned that I was there and invited me to visit her cottage. I was awed by how beautiful and cozy her place was. I even saw one of her cousins. We went to the beach and took pictures by the bonfire.
Tres Reyes
Going to this island is an experience. This is a group of 3 islands that has white rough pebbles so you better have footwear that you can wet. The boat ride from the town Gasan to the first island took 20 minutes.
We planned to leave the island by 12:00 nn and went there with just finger foods so we would be forced to leave the island by lunch time. However, we were in for a surprise.
One resident of the island went around selling ulang-ulang. It's basically a species of crab cooked in gata. Each of us tried one and it was so delicious.
After a few minutes, we saw a roasted pig without limbs being hauled in. We thought it was food of one of the visitors of the island. I was surprised to see a weighing scale near it. That was when I knew it was for sale. We bought 700 grams and was given another 100 grams for free. It was so tasty!
After that, we were open to surprises. When ice cream on stick was sold, we tried it as well.
The experience
That was one of my best vacations ever. We didn't need to get up very early or rush from place to place as, I repeat, Marinduque is quite quaint, serene and laid-back. I would love to go there every once in a while to unwind.
