THE TRUTH ABOUT THE HYPED DEATH POOL OF PANGASINAN

Lately, there's this quaint little place in Burgos, Pangasinan that has been receiving tons of limelight from the social media world. The once quiet unspoiled paradise of Cabongaoan Beach is now a favored place for the undying overnight empi-sessions under the moonlight to match the rented karaoke machine from Manong Kubo owner.

So this Holy week of 2017 we decided to check this place out because we wanna see what the hype was really all about and of course to take a glimpse of the famous "death pool" a 15-20ft in diameter hole in the rocky part of the beach that is also 20ft in depth. So of course when you come to a place, you have these wild expectations:

Expectation:

But of course, reality is even more wild:

It's understandable that it is holy week, hence the crowd. But you can put hundreds of bodies in the ocean and the water will stay the same. The first thing I look for when we go to the beach is the 

a.) sand b.) water quality, if that's not really what you're supposed to look for right. Lol.

When we arrived late lunch time, I immediately traversed past the cramped nipa style tables filled with drunk tatays drinking their afternoon beer and went straight to the shore to my great disappointment. The sand is white, not powdery but white. That's good news right? But the water, the one thing that I really came for and drove 7 hours for is plain dirty, not to mention it smells like shit, tbh. 

I submerged for about 2 feet and I can barely see my feet already. I hope that gives you an idea.

The shore is rocky and full of seaweeds which I really don't mind if it did not stank like hell. 

We didn't really took a lot of pictures because there's nothing really to snap onto. It all looked cramped and sweaty everywhere you look.

After we were settled on our room and finally ate our pre-cooked adobo, sunset is fast approaching and we decided that it's best to take advantage of the beautiful weather God has given us in exchange to our disappointment, so we changed and packed all our selfie "gadgets" and made our way out of our room.

Hiding my disappointment

We went to the shore and took advantage of the sunlight:

First groufie

We decided that it's the best time to go to the Death Pool since the sun is setting, and maybe, just maybe, the crowd has already subsided to which we were wrong again of course. Why do we always expect huh?

The death pool is about a 30 minute hike because of the sharp rocks that you need to carefully traverse, please wear slippers (or don't if you have thick worn out feet lols). The rocks are really sharp and can slice your feet wide open if you're lucky. 

When we have arrived, people are still swarming around the so called "death pool" that I didn't even bothered taking a picture (sorry). So we just took photos on the "cliff side" of the rocky platform, with the sun setting behind us, we felt a pang of comfort. 

Aura haha

Sunsets are always loved

with my aura champion friend

Romantic feels 

There's a little hole beside the rocky cliff side part that's where we decided to take a short dip. Beware of the strong waves crashing, it can slam you straight to the wall if you don't hold on to the sides properly.

NFFs (new found friends yay!)

After a few more minutes, we decided to go back to our resort. We stayed at Rendezvous Resort and paid for their Air-conditioned room good for 15pax for P5,000/night. It has its own CR and own kitchen area but no utensils/tools are provided. You can borrow from them, but during our stay, it was next to impossible due to the hundreds of campers outside in line waiting to use the free kawali and ihawan provided on their public cooking station. Luckily we brought our own. We were also provided with free kubo use, but we didn't really used it that much because the other customers already invaded the free tables just because the real renters are still on the beach. Typical Holyweek crowd. We also have a free table outside our room but we think it was stolen because we are the only room that didn't have any table outside. Well, oh well.  

We just decided to drown our sorrows on our own room with our own unlimited supply of Gin and Orange Juice. Lol

TAKE NOTE: Water is scarce. By 7pm, all sari sari stores have already ran out of drinking water. I tried to boil the tap water on our room and guessed what, it also smelled like shit after. So please bring plenty of water, we got drunk pretty early because there's nothing really left to drink but alcohol lols.

The next morning, I woke up early to see if there's any improvement, even just the tiniest one and I'll be forever thankful. But of course, my expectations were quickly shut down the moment I stepped close to the water.

On the far left side of the beach

The water still stinks. 

Fortunately , these lovely coconut trees are here to comfort.

Sunrise beauty.

By 9am, one of our friend has negotiated an Island hopping trip for only P500/boat, we are 11pax so that's 2 boats because they can only carry 10pax on their biggest fishing boat. We were ecstatic! Finally, clear waters and real swimming.

The murky waters and my sad face

So on we go, but fast forward 20 minutes in the ocean, we were already heading back. I'm like WTF? Where's the island and hopping in that? We were not informed that it was only a sight seeing tour of the nearby beaches and rock formations. The boatman said we can go down in the middle of the sea but they don't have a platform to step unto when we hop back to the boat. So being there already, we accepted our fate and just jumped into the open ocean.

    And only about after 5 minutes, the boatman is already signaling us to go back to the boat. I just couldn't believe that after all the disappointment this trip gave us, you wouldn't let us swim and get even the tiniest tint of tan. That's it, I'm ready to leave this place any minute. 

Sightseeing Tour

When we arrived back to our room, we hurriedly took our baths and decided to leave immediately since there's really no more reason to stay. We've had enough.

Our final verdict, please don't go here during peak season, or ever. Lols. Okay you may go once just to see the death pool. But after that you can go to the other beaches in Pangasinan, like Tambobong in Dasol and of course, to the famous Patar beach in Bolinao, it's 1000x better, I promise you. The quality of the water in Bolinao is comparable to Boracay.

I also talked to one of my friends whose originally from Pangasinan, he said that a few years before, Cabongaoan is a pristine paradise, so far from what it is now. The excessive amount of tourists polluted this once quaint  piece of heaven. So this is what we get now.

Sometimes, it's really best to keep some things private and hidden from the world.

Rendezvous Beach Resort:
https://www.facebook.com/RendezvousPlaceBeachCottages/


Expenses:

P500/pax- Room
P350/pax- Toll gate RT (NLEX, SCTEX)- we're just 3pax in the car
P250/pax- Food and drinks ambag
P100/pax- Sightseeing Tour -_-
P200/pax- Other expenses (tubig, yosi, etc)

P1,400/pax- TOTAL EXPENSE