The island of Luzon
2022 is going better for the Philippines than 2021: since February 10, tourists have been allowed to enter the West Pacific island kingdom again – and in April the country’s church will celebrate 500 years of missionary work.
81 percent of the 108 million Filipinos belong to the Roman Catholic Church; especially the northern part of the archipelago with the main island of Luzon is Christian. Be it faith, culture or architecture – more than 330 years of Spanish and later 45 years of US colonial rule left clear traces here.
Tourists stepping off planes in the capital, Manila (7.1 million visitors in 2019), find themselves in a vast metropolitan area of 24 million people, larger than Mexico City. However, after a two-hour drive, the picture changes and subtropical nature dominates the scenery.
Source: Infographic WORLD
Most travelers head from Manila to North Luzon – to the Banaue Rice Terraces (World Heritage Site), to the 2,000-meter-high Cordillera Mountains and to Mount Pinatubo. In 1991, in its big eruption, it lost 256 meters in height. Water filled the new caldera, since 1996 there have been tours to the crater lake.
To the south, Luzon gets narrower and narrower; In the mornings in the mountains, in the afternoons at the sea for whale watching, in the evenings a pub crawl in one of the many coastal towns – this is what a day on vacation could look like there. Luzon loves creative cuisine: Nowhere is the food more varied than on the largest of the 7,000 or so islands in the Philippines.
Tours to the crater lake of Mount Pinatubo have been available since 1996
Quelle: picture alliance
Catholics can be nailed to the cross
Ruben Enaje was crucified 33 times – more often than any other Filipino on the island of Luzon, where in the provincial city of San Fernando, devout Catholics have been historically faithfully recreating Jesus’ suffering during Holy Week for over 50 years. In 2019, Enaje was tortured in front of tens of thousands of spectators for the last time; when “Romans” pierced his hands and feet with nails up to 15 centimeters long, he felt no pain, he assured at the time.
Filipinos dressed as Romans drive nails into the hands and feet of Catholic Ruben Enaje
Source: pa / dpa / Francis R. Malasig
For more than 50 years, Filipinos in Luzon have faithfully recreated Jesus’ sufferings during Holy Week
Quelle: pa/Pacific Press/Mark Fredesjed R. Cristino
Ruben Enaje has been crucified in public 33 times
Quelle: LightRocket via Getty Images/Pacific Press
Here Ruben Enaje shows the nails, up to 15 centimeters long, that are hammered into his hands and feet
Source: pa / dpa / Francis R. Malasig
Diving with sharks the gentle way
Tourists and animals coexisting peacefully – this vision seems to be a reality in southern Luzon thanks to the World Wildlife Fund (WWF). In 1998, the Philippine government declared the waters off the coastal town of Donsol, where hundreds of whale sharks feast on plankton and krill from January to July, as a protected area.
A year later, the WWF retrained the fishermen to become guides; they now carefully introduce the visitors to the peaceful fish, which can be up to 14 meters long. The rules: Each whale shark is approached by only one boat with six snorkelers who are supposed to keep a distance of four meters from the animal in the water. With the Whale Shark Interaction Eco-Tourism Project tourist numbers rose from 200 in 1999 to 20,000 in 2019.
In southern Luzon, tourists can dive with whale sharks
Quelle: Getty Images
The First Lady left behind 3,000 women’s shoes
The Filipinos have their own word for extravagance: imeldific. It derives from the first name of the longtime first lady and dictator’s wife, Imelda Marcos. The now 92-year-old holds, together with her late husband Ferdinand, the “Guinness Book” record for the “largest government robbery”; The couple is said to have embezzled ten billion US dollars.
When he fled in 1986, he took money, art and jewelery with him, but the huge wardrobe fund remained in the presidential palace. Among them were 3000 women’s shoes. Later presented to the public, they became a symbol of Imelda Marcos’ ostentation. A third of her collection has been in Manila’s Marikina Shoe Museum since 2001.
Part of Imelda Marcos’ shoe collection is on display at Manila’s Marikina Shoe Museum
Quelle: picture-alliance/dpa/Christiane Oelrich
Tour of the most beautiful colonial city in the Philippines
The best preserved colonial city in the Philippines is located in North Luzon on the west coast: Vigan. As the Spaniards once did, tourists can Calesas drive through the old town, where some of the 180 houses from the 17th century still have panes of thin seashells.
You can buy earthenware fired in historic kilns – and then feast: whether empanada (dumplings), okoy (shrimp patty) or the garlic bratwurst vigan longganisa, all local dishes have a Spanish touch.
In a carriage you can let the old town of Vigan pass by at a leisurely pace
Quelle: Getty Images
The quote
„Charlie don’t surf“
The famous quote from Francis Ford Coppola’s award-winning Vietnam War film, Apocalypse Now (1979), occurs in a scene shot in northern Luzon: GIs want to surf a beach where big waves are pounding but Vietcongs lurk inland on the coast . The US military called her “Charlie” at the time. When a subordinate draws his attention to the danger, an officer who is enthusiastic about surfing counters curtly and disparagingly: “Charlie doesn’t surf.”
Coppola chose Sabang Beach near Baler on the east coast of the island for the film set. After filming, the director gave the surfboards to the locals as gifts – and thus aroused their enthusiasm for surfing. Today is Baler the The country’s surfing hotspot, the season runs from October to March.
Bizarre, record-breaking, typical: You can find more parts of our regional geography series here.