By the Lake of Isla Parilla We Sat Down and...

I have never been truly away from the city boundaries. Well, there maybe rare instances that I step out of the urban perimeter to attend seminars and stuff, never on a relaxing getaway. To be away where time and work is of no great concern, then this must be my first no-fuss vacation!

I can't remember the details as to why we chose Isla Parilla for our 3-day-all-expense-paid-vacation (whew!). All I can remember is one day my teacher-mates and I were planning for some good r&r in some spa-like places in the city and the next thing was... I was on the phone with the receptionist of Isla Parilla confirming our reservation.

We hopped on a passenger bus to General Santos City,a four-hour travel from Davao City. From the General Santos Bus Terminal, we hired a jeepney to get us to the Isla Parilla. The resort is in the next town, Alabel, a 30-minute drive from the city. Hiring jeepney is a new experience. We have to haggle and make odd arrangements with the jeepney drivers (Why odd? we have to keep it a secret to the other jeepney drivers... don't know why though). We finally got our transportation after 15 minutes of haggling.

The unswerving road to Alabel stretched for several kilometers making our ride bump-free. As our transport sped through the highway, almost all of my teacher friends dozed-off through the journey. I, for some reason, was strangely drawn to the black asphalt road (I even took several pictures of it). The highway is so wide and solid that, I strongly believe, planes can land there. I was imagining a fighter plane closing in to land on the Alabel highway/runway when the jeepney slowed down and made a sharp turn. We were finally in Isla Parilla.


A huge lake met us as we entered the resort. The water was still and real herons were perching along the banks. It was my first time to see real herons, the type that moves and not stuffed. Mangrooves lined the edges of the lake as well. Our driver-turned-tourguide told us that the lake and the island (hence, the "isla" in Isla Parilla) are all man-made. He also informed us that the lake's water came all the way from the ocean; and that to remove the salt, the water has to pass through a series of filters and reservoirs and stuff. I forgot all the technical stuff he shared, but I do remember him saying that this place was once a farm and that the owner painstakingly converted it into a fishpond, then years later, into a resort. If I didn't know that it was a fishpond, I might have swan dived into the water.


I snapped several pictures from my phone, it turned out great. The place is simply awesome. It has a dock where you can rent rowboats to tour around the lake. The resort cottages that lined the across the water gave me a feeling that we were vacationing in a huge 3-D post card. A normal person can circle the perimeter of the island in 10 minutes. I managed to walk a third of the resort's area, taking pictures while I go. The short trip took me about 30 minutes. There's just so much to see and do... being a city girl and all, feeding the fishes with stale bread and taking photos is a new experience. I don't think I can say the same thing with my companiions... they all went to unpack their things in the cottage and went straight to eat. Were they bored or dissappionted with the place?















Since we're in the topic of eating... the food there is great. An cast array of freshly caught seafood are displayed in the couter. Some fishes and shrimps are so fresh, you can still see them swimming in an aquarium (it would be barbaric to order those). If you're like me, a land-loving-non-seafood-eating-person, there are non-seafood items on the menu as well. It costs a bit more than your average fastfood chain... but you're stuck in the middle of an island with no other restaurants within the 10-mile radius, go figure!

By mid-afternoon, we went fishing for bangus. Armed with out fishpoles and net, we caught around four kilos worth of fish in less than an hour. We paid about 400 pesos for the fish. That solves dinner! The kitchen staff are willing to cook our catch free of charge. Dinner was really something... I thought they'll just fry it and be done with it. The staff really went beyond ordinary bangus cooking, they cooked the fish in three different ways.

Right after dinner, we dipped into the pool. The pool is divided into two. A child-friendly shallow pool with a waterfall of some sort, and a 7-foot deep pool. it was there that I attempted, pathetically, to learn how to swim. All I accomplished was to float. No more mermaid dreams for me. Since there's no pool curfew, we stayed there for hours, swimming, diving, splashing... you name it. Though the pool needed cleaning, with the slimy algal growth here and there, we still had fun goofing around.

The sun rose on the horizon telling us that it's time to bid farewell to the mangroves and fishes. Part of me didn't want to go... but we have to (we didn't have infinite financial resources). So with a camera full of pictures, we set out to our next great adventure. We're off to a 2-hour ride to a beach resort on the tip of southern Mindanao. Gumasa here we come!

Good bye Isla Parilla... kiss kiss mwah!