beach: chiara beach resort

Location: Cagwait, Surigao del Sur

I wasn't exactly sure how we got to Cagwait. It wasn't even part of the plan of our road trip. We left the planning to our newly-married friend whose initial destination was another resort in another municipality which name he just got from the Internet. After following the directions given to him, we found the place and there was a unanimous, "this is it?" reaction. Well, there wasn't any beach to speak of as it was several houses in the middle of a mangrove reservation and no place to swim in.

With words unspoken, it was decided to look for another place. The quest went on for three hours. I drifted in and out of sleep during that time. Around 3pm (we left at 4am), our friend just took a turn somewhere and decided to check in at the first place we saw. This was in Cagwait. The first resort we saw: Chiara Beach Resort.

I thought, what an interesting name for an isolated place like this. The people looked as if they weren't used to visitors because they kept staring at our vehicle as we passed them by. When we met with the owner, he happened to be German. That's why it was Chiara! He has been living in the place for a number of years already and even married a local.

It was settled that we stay there for the night. The beach wasn't exactly that exciting to look at. We've all seen better, but after being on the road for almost twelve hours, anything was acceptable.

I decided to grab a couple of people to play frisbee by the beach. The beach's sand was light brown with some pebbles scattered here and there. The waves were quite inviting for body surfing, with a height from one to two feet. The shoreline was long and littered with coconuts, which could have been brought in from the other island by the waves.

When we got tired of playing frisbee we took a dip, or more appropriately, the water kept dipping us. It was a great game of which person can travel the farthest riding the waves. I think the girls won that one out attributing it to our smaller frames. At the end of the day, the bottoms of our suits were filled with sand but our hearts were brimming with fun.

Everybody trooped to the rooms to change, but my partner and I decided to stay a bit to watch for the sunset. The copse of coconut trees actually covered the sun setting, but the clouds gave us a show as it started changing hues from red to purple to dark blue. It was magnificent.

Even if it was not what we planned for, everybody had a nice time at Cagwait and look back at it with fond memories.