Iloilo – Bacolod Day 2 (Going around Iloilo and to the South – Part 2)
Itinerary for the Day:
Iloilo New Port, Deco’s, Miag-ao Church, San Joaquin Church, Garin Farm, Camila Balay Nga Bato, Plazuela de Iloilo, and Imjap Tower
After Miag-ao Church, we decided to go to the southern most part of Iloilo which is San Joaquin. To get there, you can take the jeep right in front of the church. The fare from Miag-ao to San Joaquin was at around P15.00 each.
As to where to stop, you could just tell the driver / barker that you’ll be dropping off near San Joaquin Church. From the highway, it’s probably a 10 to 15 minute walk to get there. Architecturally, it isn’t as majestic as Miag-ao Church, but it’s well-kept too. After looking around and “lighting a candle”, our next destination was Garin Farm.
Now, Garin Farm initially wasn’t on our itinerary, and we’ve only heard from the locals that it would be a great place to go to. Although I have seen a few articles online that we should consider going here, we were skeptical. I mean, what could there possibly be in a farm? Well, you’ll find out!
To get to Garin Farm, you could ride motorcycle right outside San Joaquin church or you could walk first towards a marketplace near the highway (the same road you walked through to get to the church). The place is around 5 – 10 minutes away from the church by car and would probably be around 30 minutes if you walked.
After paying the entrance fee of P150.00 each, this is what greeted us: rows and rows of fresh produce ranging from fruits, vegetables to poultry and farm animals!
This part of Garin Farm was probably one of the best during our tour of the place. As I’m sure you’ve memorized and can most likely sing the folk song “Bahay Kubo”, knowing what you were actually singing about could be a totally different story. But not to worry; because aside from having the lyrics by the entrance, this Bahay Kubo was designed in such a way that when you go around the place clockwise, you’ll get to see each of the fruits / vegetables that are in the song, in the same order! Some of them are underground though so you couldn’t see what they really looked like. Nevertheless, I wish we had our field trip here when we were younger and we probably wouldn’t be as clueless as we were back then!
Once we were done going around the Bahay Kubo and reminiscing our younger days, we proceeded to go to the restaurant for our lunch by following the “Want to live longer, FEED YOUR BODY” sign.
If I remember correctly, we had their squid/shrimp sisig (first picture), buttered chicken (second picture), and another vegetable dish. We also ordered their frozen iced tea which was great!
Soon after stuffing ourselves, we explored the rest of Garin Farm:
After our mind, body and soul were fed, it was time to move on to the next part of our trip. To get back to the highway where all the public transportation were, we had to ask the locals to give us a ride on their motorcycle; I think it was around P50.00 for the three of us. Anyway, once at the highway, we hailed a van back to Iloilo and asked to be dropped off at Camina Balay nga Bato.
Tip 1: You could ask the motorcycle driver if he could wait for you and that you’d be willing to pay extra for the ride back since Garin Farm isn’t able to provide a convenient means of transportation from their place back to the highway. No taxi / jeep will pass through Garin Farm since its location is rather secluded.
Up next: Camila Balay Nga Bato, Plazuela de Iloilo, and Imjap Tower.
