Nogas Island, Antique

     As a continuation of our summer escapade in Antique, we went to Nogas Island, an island situated across Anini-y. It was a 15-20 minute boat ride from the mainland and is said to be an environmental sanctuary. Legend has it that Nogas is the other-half of Aniny-y. They were lovers separated by an enchanted mermaid because the latter, despite the help she has given to defend the love of the two lovers, wasn’t invited to the wedding. These made the mermaid mad so she cursed the two to be separated forever by the sea.

     Anyway, the island is actually beautiful. The water is so clear that you can see through what is behind at the bottom. The sand is also white with broken corals and rocks. This is the reason why many people flock to Nogas Island via Siraan. There are available day cottages as well that made me wonder if the local government waived the island as a protected island sanctuary. A lot of people were actually there taking a swim, bringing their own food and sadly, leaving some of their garbage.

     The island has lush trees surrounding a watchtower. There is also a trail of kalachuchi trees leading to the tower which is a popular “selfie” site. When we went there, the tower was closed (and perhaps ordinary people weren’t allowed to climb up there). I thought that this is the only site that we can visit on the island but to my surprise, the trail extends deeper in the woods. While my coteachers went back as soon as they reached the tower, one of my colleagues and I decided to why not go deeper in the woods since we saw another trail. There we saw more trees, some perhaps were century old. We saw a large balete tree which occupies about 50-100 square meters. Some people climbed up to take a photo while we were just contended to look at them being scared of whatever enchanted creatures living in there…hehe…Anyway, as we went following the trail, we were thinking to go back as we might get lost. I jokingly said that we can’t survive having only a “Nova” junkfood with us and perhaps there are cannibals lurking behind the woods. Good thing we saw a family also following the trail and we tag along with them. The floras in the woods are quite unique that some of them I only saw for the first time. Of course, we couldn’t help but to take selfies with these wondrous works of nature.

     Our boat went back after an hour to fetch us. I realized that my experience at Nogas made our Siraan summer trip more enjoyable. If it we weren’t for our Nogas Island trip, our stay at Siraan could have been less enjoyable.