MINGAY, STA. PRAXEDES: AN ESCAPE TO THE EXTRAORDINARY

MINGAY, STA. PRAXEDES: AN ESCAPE TO THE EXTRAORDINARY 

By Saniboy Pacursa

From the immense northern seas, a cooling breeze that negates the heat of the scorching broad summer sun rolls in, rustling the huge, elongated leaves of beach almond trees (lugo) that lined the serene beachfront. Sitting on a log under the shade, I look out on a seascape of aquamarine, turquoise blue colors. At anchor on a tiny bay hugging into the hemline of the northern Cordilleras before me, are several fishing boats gleaming painted yellow in the sun on a backdrop of the startling blue sea. 

A curving panorama of pale golden sand spattered with colorful seashells and coralline fragments defines the entirety of the semicircular bay. A dense, tropical growth of a verdant greenery of enormous trees blankets the surrounding hills and mountains set back opposite from the beach. I am in a traveler and backpacker’s paradise that where dreams are made of. I am in every intrepid’s destination wish list in this tiny, sunny speck of tranquility.

A traveler's paradise

This still unknown, unheard-of paradise is in Mingay Beach, Sta. Praxedes town in Cagayan, the northernmost province in the mainland Luzon Island tucked between the Sierra Madre mountain range in the east and the Cordillera mountain range in the west. I will be a little bit bias when I describe Cagayan as the most picturesque province in northern Luzon, Philippines. I have come to several places in Cagayan, but this time in the municipality of Sta. Praxedes on an excursion into the non-celebrated, not so famous destination, the mediocre will snub; until I would consider the place as one of the most beautiful places in the province I’ve been into.

Mingay Beach

Cagayan abounds in such settings - from lush, wild rivers, vast grassy plains, magnific caves, lofty virgin mountains to wild coastal realms. But spots like Mingay, is unusually special. As for most others who know the saga of Robinson Crusoe in an uninhabited island off South American western coast, Mingay represents a place in the northern coast to kick off your shoes for a real life fantasy of the same saga or Tom Hank’s “Cast Away” survival adventure.

Time is too slow in Mingay but my settlement for three days in the bay was perfected in a spectacular way where the quickest pace of the day was having indulged in a beach stroll. At sunrise, a littoral hill commands the picture-perfect view of the arching bay of the pale golden sand encircled by the massive part of the Kalbario-Patapat Protected Rainforest, a key biodiversity area assessed by the International Union for Conservation of nature or IUCN.

A littoral hill at Mingay Beach

At sunset, an equally fascinating bay, the Mingay A Bassit Beach (Little Mingay) over that littoral hill westward can exert a sort of pull, a beacon of excitement. The hill, located perfectly between the two bays serves as a giant sentinel, offering two-sided, left and right panoramic view of the semicircular bays. There is no permanent population in Mingay. No roads, no cars. No Wi-Fi, no telephones. No stores, no inns. No electricity, no night life.

Mingay A Bassit as viewed on a hill top

On Mingay, the only way to get there is through a boat from the nearby Claveria town or by hiking the precipitous up and down terrains of the Kalbario-Patapat Protected Rainforest several kilometers from the Pan-Philippine Highway. Not even ordinary locals brave going to or staying at laidback Mingay for so long. Some people, mostly small fisher folks come here not to get -away for an adventure but to fish for their own consumption; if there are some that remains, their catch are sold to the adjacent town of Claveria, in Taggat Lagoon.

Part of the Kalbario-Patapat Rainforest

Come night, there are no lights except from the adventurers’ and some fishermen’s torches. Night is the best time for the fishermen to set their nets asea, bringing back octopuses, wrasses (mulmul), drummers (angrat), parrotfish, goatfish (balaki) or the rare unicorn fish (papaget) at dawn time. During my visit, there were no other group of people except my team of four - two of them, local guides. There were no sounds other than those from nature – the rush of winds through the trees, the songs of nocturnal birds and insects and the harsh gush of the surf in its perpetual barrage of waves, striking the side of the Simmapatos rock formation not too far from the spot where we set our camping tents. I dined there on a leaf plate for experience, on seafood previously pulled hours earlier from the near shoals and coral reef-rich waters of Mingay; a bounty of ar-arusip (sea grapes), pumapana (sea urchins) and a delectable grilled mulmul (parrot fish).

The bounty of Mingay Sea

The magical lights from the galactic Milky Way bathed the entire beach before I closed my tent for a peaceful night’s rest. Paradise as it is, Mingay Beach beacons the travelers with the promise of escape to the extraordinary.

On the first glimpse of the morning, my journey on the stretch of Mingay revealed a landscape of exotic and at once familiar. To me, its wild shores and limpid waters remind me of the equally beautiful island of Calayan. Its colossal rock formations and coral reefs teeming with life evoke those in Camiguin de Babuyanes Island. Its green palette mountains resemble the Sierra Madre of Sta. Ana, Cagayan and the Palaui Island. It’s the juxtaposition of these different features makes Sta. Praxedes so exotic, yet alluring.

A rock formation at Mingay Sea

We landed first on the majestic Burbursayok Falls where it plummets down from the rainforest rocky cape directly to the Babuyan channel, a body of water separating Luzon mainland from the Babuyan Group of Islands in the north. It can only be reached by boating or rafting, not that far from Mingay Beach. The basin of the falls is very clear with traces of white sand from the bottom. As we led our way to the next destination, several rock formations and caverns greeted our sight with such nature sculptures locally named as Simmimbaan, Immuki, Abut ti Buwaya, Immugsa, Simmapatos, Tallo-Ulo, Simmunggo and many more others owing much to the description of their forms as seen by the local fishermen.

Wild shores of Sta. Praxedes

We briefly anchored in a swimming pool-clear waters protected by the surrounding reefs only to be mystified by the high-rising Bilbilagot Falls free-falling to the sea. With nearly eighty waterfalls in the country I photographed and personally documented, Bilbilagot is the tallest and possibly also the highest known waterfalls in Cagayan. I donned a snorkeling gear and dived on the shallow natural aquarium near the waterfalls. I could see fishes of extravagant colors and seemingly limitless variety of corals in bizarre shapes, swaying from them were edible sea weeds.

With my team, we carefully pulled some dangerous long-spined sea urchins and conch shells (pusa-pusa) reserved for another dinner. But one sight I will always remember was the spectacle of several men collecting gamet, a type of expensive but palatable sea weeds clinging from the slippery, massive rocks extending into the sea that are constantly torpedoed by the torrential sea waves of the China Sea-Pacific ocean junction.

Bilbilagot Falls

Sta. Praxedes is a town of beautiful sheltered coves, arguably the most in the entire province with about a dozen or more if we include those unnamed ones. Of those, there are eight notable beach coves namely the Salsalaysay, Immugsa, Mingay (Dakkel and Bassit), Puwak, Nanaplaan and Kimmansir. Each cove has its own, unique characteristic of tranquility, clear waters and eye-catching beaches bounded by massive cliffs saturated with rainforest and thick vegetation. But Kimmansir Beach is the most stunning, most bewitching and most enthralling of them all yet, also the farthest to reach.

A Praxedenian shimmering jewel, the Kimmansir Beach offers the enchantment of turquoise blue waters, murmuring surf and the peculiar immaculate white, uniformly sized quail egg-shaped stones on its beach embedded on a pure white, coralline seashore. As we approached the beach from a small boat, Kimmansir sparkled and was beaming as the white beach met the sun rays of the morning. There were no other visitors except our team of four, plus our hired boat man. We have literally possessed the beach for hours.

Ivory white Kimmansir Beach

It is a landscape that captivates at first glance. It has enchanted ever since just the fisher folks and some locals for decades because it remained concealed, hidden, out from the outside world until the boom of ecotourism industry. And for those fortunate enough to travel here, Kimmansir still charms them, one thing it has done for many decades since its first visitors experienced the same bewilderment.

But for the seasoned adventurers, it’s not the cozy hotels and lavish night life that impress them in the places they go. For me, the enchantment of the Mingay and the rest of Sta. Praxedes would come into its both rugged and untroubled coasts, magnificent coves, rich tropical rainforest and laidback life that sure thing will bring you an adventure to the unusual, an escape to the extraordinary. ©️