Driving from Davao City, we crossed the ComVal border arriving late afternoon in August 2016 at the Compostela Valley Provincial Capitol in its capital, Nabunturan. The capitol was in a big complex, even though Nabunturan is still classed as a municipality… not a city as yet.

From here, my niece Trish and I trekked through plenty of dirt road in our rental car arriving in the town of Maragusan around 8 pm. We stayed at Haven’s Peak, which was on an even higher altitude. Here are some photos I took the next morning…

Aptly named as it sits on a mountain peak, the views from Haven’s Peak were simply stunning… I was in awe and full of gratitude as I was reminded by a big sign outside our room about God Almighty’s wonderful creation.

We then found out through a sign in a small rotunda erected in 1998 that Maragusan is known as the Summer Capital of Davao due to its high altitude and very cool climate.

An endemic plant species, Rafflesia magnifica, with the largest flowers in the world can be found here in Maragusan. But we were sad to learn that aside from being difficult to find, they were not in flower season at that time. We were however, shown a preserved flower, which was picked just before it started to rot.

Rafflesia magnifica’s flower is almost as big as Trish’s torso.

Rafflesia magnifica’s morphology… not very different to other flowers.

Maragusan is also home to many stunning waterfalls and we were able to have a quick look at one of them. Tagbibinta Falls is very high comprising a series of seven falls. Here I am at the bottom just enjoying the beauty of the terminal drops.

We used Haven’s Peak as our base for two nights, enjoying the cool weather, eating yummy food served by the hotel and having a little more than a few shots of Emperador Light Brandy. It was also here that Trish got me to taste the local fruit called marang, which was very similar to durian.

The next day after our first night, we went for a short day trip to the Province of Davao Oriental. And after the second night, we headed back to Davao City with a short stopover in Tagum City of Davao del Norte.

CoachConto – Athlete, Warrior, Statesman, Spirit