The Smart Gypsy Travels

Pakil, Laguna is known for its miraculous yet, capricious image of the Nuestra Señora de los Dolores de Turumba or the Our Lady of Sorrows of Turumba. Legend has it that the image of Our Lady, a nine-inch by 11-inch oil on canvas, belonged to some Spanish missionaries who encountered a shipwreck while crossing Laguna de Bay during a huge storm. The image was retrieved by a group of fishermen on September 15, 1788. Believing that it was a religious relic, the fishermen decided to bring it to the church of San Pedro de Alcantara, located in Pakil. The original image is enshrined in the  retablo  of a prayer room on the second floor. However, the winds would not cooperate. So the fishermen took a different route on which they were able to sail smoothly. They laid the image of the grieving Virgin, with a dagger on her heart, on the top of a flat rock, prompting a group of women to curiously regard the image. They were surprised to see that the canvass was dry desp...

I want to be in a myth. I would be the mythical mistress who freed Bernardo Carpio. Because recently, I learned that freedom does have a threshold. Every freewheeling spirit arrives at a linear fast lane; even diversity becomes incessantly monotonous. Everyone needs a break. The Wawa Dam used to be the primary water source of Metro Manila, before Angat Dam in Bulacan took its place. Along the gorge at the foothills of the Sierra Madre in Rodriguez (formerly Montalban), Rizal flows the Wawa River. In the early 1900s, the Americans built the Wawa Dam to serve as the primary water source of Metro Manila. Pollution due to rampant quarrying and dredging impelled the now defunct NAWASA to halt its operations there sometime in the 1950s. Tourists still visit Wawa Dam for some quick thrill and R&R, as of writing. Traces of Wawa’s lively past are seen all over the place: empty tunnels left by the decommissioned pipes, a bygone intake station with deep holes kept precariously...

The Facade of the Paete Church Originally constructed by the Franciscans in the mid-1600s, the Church of San Santiago Apostol, more known as the Paete Church, houses some of the original works of Paete-born artist, Jose Luciano Dans. The smell of damp wood from my first visit in 2008 left a distinct memory that was rekindled four years later. According to some accounts, Dans mixed pulverized volcanic ash with pigments and fashioned his paintbrushes out of cat's hair. ( Traveler on Foot ) During the time of the Church's renovation in the 1840s, Dans painted the image of San Cristobal carrying the infant Jesus on planks of wood that had been joined together — most likely using the said materials. For more than a century, this painting of Dans captured the awe of tourists and church-goers. Paete-born artist, Jose Luciano Dans, painted the image of San Cristobal on 12 planks of wood that were joined together. Unknown to them, at that time, Dans' mural was ma...