Back from General Santos City…
I just came back from General Santos City. A lot has changed since I went up there when I was still a boy. The roads are already paved with some shortcuts already in place for you to sidestep traffic from cities in between.
The travel time was 3 hours from the usual 2:30 as I drove at a crisp 70 kph. What was remarkable was that I got disillutioned disillusioned into thinking that I had the only vehicle in mindanao as there were long stretches wherein I saw no other cars. You could drive on the middle of the road without guilt…*snicker*
On one day we received word that there were some whale shark found near the beach so we hopped on there for a look see. True enough we found a pair swimming near the shore feeding on the plankton. The local DENR was there with scuba gear checking on them, luckily though their help was not needed as the pair had no plans of beaching. I asked the local folks there if it was a natural seasonal occurance, it seemed not, as the last time they saw one around their area was around 1989 and that thing beached and they feasted on its oily meat for months. Farther off from the coast of sarangani bay you can regularly see schools of pilot whales and dolphins.
One of our hosts explained to us why the City was renamed to General Santos from it’s original name of Dadiangas (da-diang-gas.) General Santos was responsible for the initial growth of the city. He ran the city in the 1930’s and had a mandate from the government to populate the barren landscape. So anybody could go there and visit General Santos’ house, he’d give you 24 hectares of land and a loan to get you started. Eventually with the influx of pioneers the no. of hectarage given went down, from 12 to 8 etc.
All in all it was a great trip for me and my wife but after a few days I was already missing my dogs. Hopefully we’ll be back there soon to have a further look see.
[…] It seems that the Butanding that we saw, feasting on the local plankton at Sarangani Bay last week, are still there. […]