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Seventh Stop: Urban Living in CDO

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After our trip to Camiguin, we continued our trip to the Gateway to Northern Mindanao, Cagayan de Oro.

The City of Cagayan de Oro is the provincial capital of Misamis Oriental. The city lies along the northern coastline on the Mindanao island, south of the Philippines.

The city serves as the regional center of Northern Mindanao (Region X). According to the 2007 Census, the city has an estimated population of about 553,996 people.
more info here

We had a whole lot of fun in our trip to Camiguin. We visited all the Camiguin tourist spots possible with the limited time that we had. From Sto. Niño Cold Spring, Soda Swimming pool, Guiob Church Ruins, Sunken Cementery and Ardent Hot Spring on the first day, to White Island and Katibawasan Falls to wrap up the whole trip.

After that, we are off to Cagayan de Oro. From the resort we stayed in at Mambajao, Camiguin, we went to Benoni Port to ride a ferry boat bound for Balingoan Port in Misamis Oriental. Yes Misamis Oriental since Cagayan de Oro is the capital city of the province. From Balingoan Port, you can ride a tricycle or traysikad going to the terminal where you will be riding a bus bound for CAGAYAN DE ORO CITY! The trip to Cagayan de Oro was more or less 2-3 hours from Balingoan port.

Once you reach the bus terminal in Cagayan de Oro, there are a number of places where you can stay. Since we were not familiar with the place, we planned to stay in Golden Pension House since it was near SM and Lumbia Airport. While on our way to the place and chatting with the taxi driver, he told us to better stay in hotels in downtown CDO to have better access to malls, fast food chains, churches and other places. We opted to continue with the ride to Golden Pension House so that we can personally check the place. The location is so isolated we may have to pass on our plans on checking out some places downtown so transportation will be a problem at night. The apartelle was more or less 200 meters away from SM CDO but the location of SM CDO is in Upper Carmen, Cagayan de Oro City which is far from the busy life in downtown CDO which we wanted to check out. . We ended up following the suggestion by the taxi driver.

 

The taxi driver gave us a minitour of the downtown area of Cagayan de Oro while giving us tips on what we can do and which place to visit. He brought us Willshire Inn. We got the Standard room for 595 pesos a night. It was cheap and the room was quite big for both of us, with aircon and cable television.

We were in Cagayan de Oro to try white water rafting since Cagayan de Oro is know as the “Rafting Capital of the Philippines”. The sad news is, we were running out of moolah. Also, while watching cable TV, it was advertised that Cagayan de Oro has the longest dual zipline in the Philippines so we devised a plan. The plan is to go back in Cagayan de Oro in the coming months and try out white water rafting and the zipline. That should make a second trip to Camiguin worth doing.

Since we stayed downtown, we had access to most of the malls and most establishments so we spent most of our time just strolling. We passed by Gaisano City Mall while on our way to Limketkai Center to have dinner. Limketkai Mall/Center is located in Barangay Lapasan near the national highway. It is not a tall building but it covers around 25 hectares making it one of the most expansive commercial complexes in the country. There was one thing really unique about Limketkai (or Robinson’s) which I haven’t seen in any other malls in Cebu. Limketkai Mall has a walkalator! That was the first walkalator I have seen in my whole life. The walkalator is in Robinson’s and Robinson’s is housed in Limketkai. Here are pictures of the walkalator for those who hasn’t seen one. 🙂
Since we were not really familiar of jeepney routes and we opted not to ask anybody, on our way back to were we stayed, we walked from Limketkai Mall to Willshire Inn. The taxi driver that we chatted when we arrived in CDO has informed as that like Cebu, hold-ups and other crimes were rampant in the place. We that in mind, it was still a fun walk and we almost got lost. We passed by a busy street that looks like Colon. By Sunday, we attended mass at Xavier University as it was just a 5-minute walk away from were we stayed.
On the day of our flight back to Cebu, we checked out of Willshire early but left our bags at the counter and we strolled more and took pictures of the park fronting Xavier University.
After a number of crappy shots that I took near Xavier, we went back to Limketkai Mall to have something to munch on and let time slowly pass by.
After that, we got our bags and headed to SM CDO to let time pass by while waiting for our flight back to Cebu. Like SM City Cebu, SM CDO also has free WiFi. We got bored while in SM CDO waiting for time to slowly tick away and we got tired walking endlessly so we opted to watch a movie in SM CDO. We watched Percy Jackson and the Lightning Thief. If I remember it right, admission was 80 pesos per person. It was my first time to watch a movie from a movie cinema outside any cinemas from Cebu.
After the movie, we hurried to Lumbia Airport for our flight back to Cebu. Here is another funny thing to note. Our flight back to Cebu was our first time to ride an airplane, believe it or not. It’s good to spend a lot of “firsts” together. 🙂

For all the places that I have visited outside Cebu (not that many), I have never considered relocating in another city. I have lived in Cebu for 22 years and if in the future I will need to relocate, I will definitely consider Cagayan de Oro as it has most of the things that I have grown accustomed to in Cebu.

There is not much to talk about our stay in CDO since we mostly stayed in the room and roamed around their malls. We did not get to visit their tourist spots due to time and budget-constraints. Also, we did not want to visit 1 or two tourist spots and leave ourselves wanting more. So, we will be back in CDO and check out what their tourist spots have to offer. We will be back in Cagayan de Oro and we will document it just for you or you can join us on our next trip back to CDO. ^_^

Comments

comments

Comments

  4. I read a lot of your blogs… Im just curious how did you manage your trips financially? A young couple, or should I say a “couple to be”, had traveled lots of beautiful places must have that budget enough to go to anywhere you wanted to! Nice blogs! Nice shots! keep posting!

    Reply

  5. hey Anonymous

    hmmmmmm that’s the same question I ask myself too, honestly ahahaha

    well, maybe because both of us works on a BPO company (well I have resigned and doing freelance work), which as we all know, has a good compensation package… that helps a lot and we also live a simple life, which means we are able to spare more for getaways 🙂

    Reply

  6. hi, nice one! this is like the one we did last year (me& my gf). camiguin then at cdo. we even stayed at the same pension house as u were in cdo. like u we also travel a lot but lacks the blogging part. 🙂

    Reply

  8. @Anonymous

    cool.. you should try blogging too. its definitely worth reading back your experiences in your free time 🙂

    @THRIFTY FASHIONISTA sayang! we could have used a direction or two from you hehe

    Reply

  10. Bai, the longest dual zipline is in Dahilayan, a barangay of Manolo Fortich which is a town of Bukidnon. Some groups are offering packages for both the water rafting and zipline so its often mistaken that it is also located in CDO. Suroy pud mo sa Bukidnon next time bai!

    Reply

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