caraga destination — Caraga rising paradise

Hinatuan Enchanted River – magical Caraga Destination

May 22, 2011 9 Comments

photos and words by Guest Blogger Mary Grace Monton on May 22nd, 2011

Out of a busy life, pampering oneself is a luxurious choice. My option? Nature trekking.

Together with my school pals we headed off to Hinatuan Enchanted River at Talisay, Hinatuan, Surigao del Sur. We departed Butuan City at exactly 4 : 00 o’clock in the morning making sure to witness sunrise on our way.

We rented van services to maximize our savings but we have travel companies for bus routes operators in going to Hinatuan Enchanted River. Unless if you are a celebrity and famous you can have your own suv or a limousine bus for maximum comfort.

The trek amazed us of the picturesque view of green bushes, towering trees and wide rice paddies along the way. Adding to our excitement is the smell of the morning breeze. This is how we engrossed Caraga Destination in meeting natures along the way.

It took us three hours to reach the place that started from Butuan City. But never mind we enjoyed it anyway.

Welcoming you to Hinatuan Enchanted River as I make my entrance with this famed marker for visitors to pose for a moment.

My way down to the most awaited scene while taking my hotshot for a while.

This is what makes enchanted! The river is deep blue like an ocean. This is where the mouth of the river comes out and the source of water. The birth of the river started naturally the flow of water from the mountains. But here it is not. Water comes out in a magical way below the earth surface. And it’s amazingly deep.

Hinatuan Enchanted River turned out to be far beyond our expectations. Wow! The site is such enchanting. The blue water with fishes of different colors is truly a gift of nature. The jade-blue water is so inviting that one could wade off to water instinctly. Thank God for the life vest for rent in the area for only P10.00/hour.

We had our picture galore to the max posing at all angles with our best smiles. Say, cheese…!

I totally forgot my city life for I was so engrossed with the place seeing the divers as they splash in to the water with cheers from the people around them. Echoes of laughter are everywhere. I went up and down the stairs to get the best view of the place. There were also boats for rent so people could better explore the Hinatuan Enchanted River.

People gathered in tents savoring their food sold around. Some enjoyed eating their ‘baon’. Everyone is mesmerized by the place as shown in their happy faces.

Time flew so fast that we have to go back home at 4:00 o’clock in the afternoon. It felt nostalgic to bid goodbye to Hinatuan Enchanted River that in many ways delighted our hearts of its true beauty. A truly gift of nature… A gift from God Almighty.

Wait! Memory full displayed on my cam. Never mind we brought home wonderful memories saved not only in our minds but in our hearts as well.

Light Up Butuan for the Holiday Season

December 8, 2010 Leave a Comment

photos and words by Guest Blogger Jocelyn E. Morano on December 1st, 2010

Butuan City – Annual Light Up Butuan of the city government have drawn big crowds from all walks of life including visiting tourists who gathered at the Rizal Park to witness the tradition of the Mayor’s ceremonial switching on of twinkling lights, the festive decorations and revelries on the first day of December.

This is just one activity for Caraga tourist spots or your Caraga destinations when December comes.

“In this holiday season, we hope to forget some problems that comes our way, let’s enjoy the festive atmosphere and the beautiful parols we see everywhere,” said Mayor Ferdinand Amante Jr. in his message before the ceremonial switching on.

He likewise praised the leadership of Engineer Walter Butao of the Electrical Division in City Engineering Office saying, “They have done an excellent job of putting up the decorations around Rizal Park and main thoroughfares in Butuan and without their effort, Light Up Butuan wouldn’t be as great this.”

There were also Lighted parols on electric posts along G. Flores Avenue, Montilla Boulevard, Magsaysay Bridge, Diosdado Macapagal Bridge, AD Curato Street and Governor Rosales Street.

The city government have also stretched lights across city hall area and put a huge ribbon on its façade creating a gift design.

The Amante administration aimed to make Rizal Park and the City Hall area a family destination for the must see Christmas decorations and admire the lights during the holiday season.

To add glisten, through the City Tourism Office the city government of Butuan launched the Best Lighted Establishment and shall award 10,000 cash to those who can decorate with Christmas symbols and lights to the façade of their edifice.

The judging starts on December 6 until 10 following a criterion of: Lighting effects – 40%; presentation – 25%; materials used – 20% and design impact – 15%.

All business establishments along JC Aquino Avenue are encouraged to participate.

Caraga Review More On SEO

October 28, 2010 Leave a Comment

For almost four years of blogging, this site amazed me of increasing traffic that started from scratch. Caraga started as a blogspot, a free publishing tool owned by Google. A year later, I purchase domain name from Godaddy. The site still hosted free by Google using the simple and in-demand Blogger platform.

The site focused on beautiful Caraga destinations or Caraga tourist spots. I am calling the site as Caraga Rising Paradise because people keep asking about the place. The name somewhat unknown to them. But when they scan the pages of the site, some are saying they want to jump right away.

Related Topic: Love business and Internet marketing? Check out an online business degree

A place is climbing towards the famed spot, still climbing. A beautiful place started to rise because of tourism. But there is just one concern that I want to shout against it, and that is mining. Topping the news that Caraga is now mining capital in Asia because of its rich in mineral resources, I’m afraid that my dream will break into pieces as mining will lash back tourism. At the end, Caraga rising paradise will turn into nightmare.

I hope not.

Anyway, I have to leave everything of what will happen in the next decade. But now, I am enjoying steadily the increasing traffics coming to my site. As of this moment, I have an average fifty unique visitors per day. Seventy percent of my visitors were come from organic search engine while twenty percent from direct traffics, and ten percent from referring sites. Well, that was a great accomplishment for Caraga.

Google The Net For Traffics

I have been an Entrecard lover. But one year making debut and never stop blog hopping I put in my mind how to put this thing out in my hand and discontinue clicking the button. Although Entrecard increases my traffic in Alexa Rank but progressively slowly down when you became inactive. I believe it was just giving you temporary traffic but helps a lot for those who are not dying in clicking the button. But believe me the button still exists for anyone would like to advertise. Entrecard lovers are welcome.

I have been actively involve to different bloggers group and added my site to them particularly Mybloglog and Blogcatalog but it seems traffics are expected low. But in the first place when you are new to blogging you have to take advantage and registered your site to them. You will not regret in putting these sites in your bucket list. You will be connected to different owners of blogsites.

I registered my site to different forums from Caraga to Internationally known blogger forums. I have been actively commenting blogsites too. Although commenting can makes some drastic changes to traffic in your site but turns out to be seasonal. This makes me a freak human being in the making. Traffics showing in the blogs are the most exciting moments for bloggers. Blogs are alive and competing in the highway.

How I Love SEO

In the world of blogging, you must be consistent in publishing articles in your blog site. More articles mean more traffics coming to your site. In the year 2010, there are months as you can see it in my Blog Archive, no posting of articles at all, and for the months I have posted, I have done it only once in a month. I became a lazy blogger. What makes this site amazing was the less posting of articles but in effect traffics are increasing.

A lot of bloggers have posted articles thrice a week to increase traffic in their site. And if you are a dedicated and persistent bloggers you can post an article once in a day, and you became an exceptional bloggers at the end.

Because bloggers believed that Content is King.

In my case, there is just one important factor that makes me a lazy blogger and that is discovering SEO. You have to understand that keywords are important in your site. Right keywords are the magic words streaming in your articles. The most awesome activity is when traffics coming in by just sleeping around the corner or go to bed at night. The next day when you open your stats traffics are flowing in. This is the juiciest part in SEO, and I became a fan and like SEO forever.

No effort on the part of the publisher or website owners. You just imagine that peoples around the globe discovered Caraga in one, two or three words in their minds with just a click of their mouse.

Visitors from organic search are fruitful peoples and real ones. The value of their presence in your site affects your site credibility and ranking. This is why the reason why I fight for SEO in Caraga. In other aspect, I continue being a lazy blogger for not posting articles frequently as needed. If I have done this as an excellent bloggers like others have done, then this site moves in the ranking with flying colors.

Rich Keywords Are Goldmine

Another juicy part in SEO is pitting the right keyword the presence of Google Ads in your site. Using the keywords will match the presence of Google Ads in your site. Peoples searching for topics are endless. When your site was lucky for a visit as someone reach the topics, the end of the visit was probably the exit link of Google Ads due to matching topics or keywords. This in turn will put your site in money making online.

Rich keywords will put your site in a mountain of gold. Yes, rich keywords are money. Google Ads will paste your site the most precious and money-valued ads. I will not anymore explain how it will be done because Google has the right things to do. Anyway, I hate putting this site into money making online machine as promised. But if the demands pour, why not grab the opportunity? I have to break the promise.

This is what makes blogging inspiring.

Scenes from Magpupongko – the future 7 wonders of the world

September 17, 2008 19 Comments

You should not be an alien to your own native land. But when I went to Magpupongko I became alienated. This is the place I have never been before. But now it became part of my life. Maybe, this is one way of championing the best of Caraga.

Of course, you will never forget the amazing Agusan del Norte, and the island adventures Surigao City. And now, the wonder of Magpupongko.

When I set my eyes to this place, I was so amaze with the natural beauty that scattered anywhere along the way.

Magpupongko was located at the town of Pilar – recently, the fishing capital of the Philippines, Siargao Island, province of Surigao del Norte. Magpupongko from the native word “pongko” which means to “sit down.” That’s the reason the place got its name because of the presence of giant rock sitting in a another rock, like this one

Or else, when I gave my shot far from it, I thought my friend is running away from the falling stone, or just give way to the falling rain. That’s it.

This is one of the beauties of Magpupongko. But it does not end here. You have to take for miles to witness different rock formations, emerges of different pools, the waves coming from the deepest ocean, the sands, and the islands. These will be your hotspots of the day.

What you see is what you believe – Magpupongko is a haven of pools – amaze me so much with its clear jade water after rushing in from the sea during high tide. When low tide comes in, different pools emerge along the coastline where you can choose which pools you want to suit your taste, and submerge!

It will set you for a long walk seeing different pools in the seaside, you will never get tired even for a hundred miles.

For family gathering, or for everybody, and counting.

For romantic lovers in a little cove for privacy – have the best pick of your own.

During high tide, pools have been nowhere, but still you can do the gymnastic dive. Be sure you are in the pools, or else, in the rock.

The magnificent giant waves from the deepest of the ocean are part of it. Witness how it formed before your eyes. Surfers are not allowed here. Warning, it’s deep, and smashing you in the bed rock along that line. Go ahead to General Luna’s Cloud 9.

Walking through the miles it will captivates you how rocks and fine white sands meeting in one place with lots of pools, and then in front of it the smashing of giant waves from the deep of the ocean.

If you are here, then let me know how you feel when natures became your friends here. Well, let me say in one word – Paradise!

special thanks to freida of butuanon dot org for some of the pix

You can reach Magpupongko from Dapa for 1 hour after reachingSiargao by MV RORO for 4 hours or by super cat for 2 hours from Surigao City, and from Butuan City to Surigao City for 2 hours by bus.

Caraga – a place of never-ending adventures

April 20, 2008 42 Comments

CARAGAcan be traced back to the 15th century when explorers discovered the existence of Kalagans, believed to be of Visayan Origin in one of the three districts in Mindanao. The word Caraga originated from the Visayan word “Kalagan”: “Kalag” meaning soul or people and “An” meaning land. The “Kalagans” have a long history of being brave and fearless. Thus, the region was called by early chroniclers as the “Land of the Brave and Fierce People.”

The “Kalagans”, called “Caragans” by the Spaniards occupied the district composed of the two provinces of Surigao, northern part of Davao Oriental and Eastern Misamis Oriental. The two Agusan Provinces were later organized under the administrative jurisdiction of Surigao and became the independent Agusan province in 1914. In 1960, Surigao was divided as Norte and Sur, and in June 1967, Agusan followed suit. While Butuan then was just a town of Agusan, the logging boom in 1950’s drew business and businessmen to the area. On August 2, 1950. by virtue of Republic Act 523, the City Charter of Butuan was approved.

CARAGA is an Administrative Region of the Philippines, on the northeastern portion of the island of Mindanao. It is the newest region in the Philippines, and is also called Region XIII. The Caraga Region was created through Republic Act Number 7901 on February 25, 1995. The region is composed of five (5) provinces: Agusan del Norte, Agusan del Sur, Surigao del Norte and Surigao del Sur, and the newly created province, Dinagat Islands (from Surigao del Norte); six (6) cities: Butuan, Surigao and Bislig, and recently, the newly created component cities: Cabadbaran, Bayugan, and Tandag; seventy (70) municipalities and 1,346 barangays. Butuan City is the regional center.It’s haven for tourists and adventurers. The region hosts two of the Philippines’ 10 National Integrated Protected Areas – the Siargao Seascape, and the 100,000-hectare Agusan Marsh Wildlife Sanctuary – as well as world class dive, surfing, and sport fishing sites, mountains trekking and biking, white sand beaches, hot and cold springs, caves, rivers, forests, and waterfalls.If you are seeking a challenging experience or simply an escapade from the humdrum of urban life, venture no more… Come and experience adventure one can find south of the Philippines islands that simply lures visitors to frolic in its pristine beauty.