El Puerto Marina Beach Resort & Spa

Come Holy Week, I got an invitation from El Puerto Marina Beach Resort and Spa owners Roland and Flordeliza Versoza to stay at their resort in Lingayen and, not having any other activity planned for the holidays, decided to accept their offer.

A group of flagellants

A penitent carrying a wooden cross

It was also to be my first visit to Pangasinan’s capital.  For company, I brought along my children Jandy and Cheska and we all left on Wednesday afternoon, the eve of the Holy Week rush.  As such, my 227-km. trip, normally a 4.5-hour drive, took all of 6 hrs., it being a holiday.  We arrived at the resort by 8 PM.

Check out “Resort Review: El Puerto Marina Resort and Spa“

We were welcome by Flor who billeted us at one of the resort’s rustic airconditioned native-style bungalows with bath and cable TV.  Resting on stilts, these bungalows are cantilevered over a fishpond and reached via an S-shaped wooden footbridge. Quite famished, we dined at its equally rustic pavilion before calling it a night.

Cheska at the Hundred Islands

The next day, we joined a group which included Fil-American Katrina Nogoy and Malaysian-American Janet Jun Siew Loh, both teachers in Japan, for a tour of the Hundred Islands  (Cheska was a first-timer to these islands) in Alaminos City. On our way back to the resort, we dropped by the Cathedral of the Epiphany of our Lord in Lingayen.

Check out “Return to the Hundred Islands” and the “Cathedral of the Epiphany of Our Lord” 

Picnic sheds along Lingayen Beach. We pitched our tent at the second hut from the right