Life in the time of Covid: Travel back to my hometown. Part 1

Home is where the heart is and for me the closest to home is the family

Hello everyone, today I will be sharing with you my recent vacation after almost 3 years of getting stuck in the city because of covid restrictions. The vacation was 2 years in the making as I used to go home during holidays and special occasions. So I made sure everything will work according to plan.

If you do not know, I am from Mindanao, the underrated land outside of the metro with too many preconceived notions about being safe and security. But Mindanao is far from what the media portrayed hence my penchant of going back every now and then.

View of the third bridge from the ferry

I decided to take a ferry which will take 12 hours from Cebu to Nasipit and a 4 hours bus ride to my hometown. Yey! I am excited to talk about my hometown and its neighboring attractions. I arrived at Nasipit safe and sound greeted by a sunny weather but the heavy downpour dampens my excitement on the way to my hometown. Welcome to Agusan, the land of gloomy weather all year round. Lol

Finally, I am home, after several years of yearning. I love the smell of fresh air coming from the mountains as I walk my way to our house from the bus terminal. The newly created asphalt road made me feel strange of the place I grew up to. Not to mention the dilapidated structure in front crowded by tall grass and bushy plants growing everywhere.

In a nutshell, San Franz or San Francisco is a first class municipality of the province of Agusan del Sur. The main source of income is farming such as but not limited to palm oil, rice, vegetables, and banana. It also has small scale mining and processing of gold and some other minerals. Because it is a crossroad of three adjacent regions, people flock the town for their government and banking transactions as evident in the presence of several banking and financial institutions.

This is my hometown at night taken from a drone shot. It is a hybrid of a bustling city and countryside except for the unreliable internet. Lol Image taken here

This is just like 1% of the entire palm oil plantation that expanses to the adjacent towns. It has an area of around 25,000 hectares. Image taken here

This is a small parcel of my parents farm few kilometers from the town center. The harvest is just enough to provide us food for the entire season. In the photo is our neighbors house in the village. Pretty laid back and simple.

So that is it for now fellow hivers. I will share with you some of the places I visited during my short vacation on my next post. Have you been to Mindanao, or to Agusan Sur? Share it in the comment.

It is a bit gloomy weather lately, do not forget to bring your umbrellas.

Cheers everyone!