Applauding Palawan: Part 5 - The Magical Fireflies

When I was young, my Mom and Dad went to Camiguin to visit my Uncle Leo and Autie Matet and they came back with a tan and with an evident glow of people who just came from an epic getaway. The most memorable part of that trip was my mom’s story of how they saw fireflies light up an entire tree in Mantigue. Ever since then I have always wanted to see that for myself. The only time I have ever seen a firefly was when I was 6 years old and the firefly was flying solo. I was in Baungon, Bukidnon then with my cousins and they told me it was a flying match stick so you can say that wasn’t really grand. Watching fireflies light up anything has always been in my Bucket List since my Mom’s story. 

I was supposed to go to Palawan last June but it didn’t push through. I have researched all about Palawan and I found out that they have firefly watching in Iwahig and I knew I had to go there. Luckily, I was given my second chance when Gang got us tickets to Palawan. She literally did everything. I reined in my excitement a little bit since it may not happen again (you’ll never know). My only request was FIREFLIES; I had to see them even if it meant a more expensive pax. Having someone else arrange our itinerary, I must say, makes it really so much more enjoyable. 

When we got to the start point, I really thought we were going to drive all the way to Iwahig and we were all surprised that we stopped at the Baywalk. From there we rode a boat to the Siksikan River. This river is literally siksik with Mangroves, long stretches of Mangroves.

This by far the only decent picture we were able to capture. 

It’s very shallow that’s why we had to move to a smaller boat, which will take us to the river. We were on the first batch to the smaller boat and the rest of the group stayed on for dinner. We were told that the river houses 3 kinds of Mangroves and that the fireflies are choosy beings – they only like Patpat Mangroves so not all of the trees will light up.  

When we entered the river, we were immediately surrounded by thousands of mangroves. A little way over, we started seeing lights, in small groups and the hair on the back of my neck already started raising, then our guide said: “That’s only the barangay, wait till you see the city!” 

A little more into the river and I already started crying, tree after tree lights up like it’s surrounded by Christmas lights. I feel like there are a thousand fairies, a thousand Tinkerbells lights up those trees. We tried to capture all of this on a video or a picture but we weren’t able to. We have a kick ass camera but even with that, I don’t think it’ll be possible to capture it unless we have the whole NatGeo wild crew with us. Definitely something everyone should have on their to-do-before-I-die List. 

Somewhere along that brief tour of the Siksikan River, while I was crying over the beauty of the fireflies, while I was celebrating another CHECK in my bucketlist – my life was changed.