Dumaguete

The Boulevard at All Hours

Rizal Boulevard runs along Dumaguete’s waterfront for about a kilometer — a wide promenade with a concrete sea wall, a row of acacia trees, and a string of outdoor restaurants that specialize in fresh seafood and in making time pass without urgency. I arrived on a Tuesday evening and found the whole length of it occupied: couples sitting on the wall, families eating grilled tuna, a group of Silliman University students running through what appeared to be philosophy seminar notes. The smell was salt water, charcoal, and frangipani from a tree somewhere nearby.

Dumaguete is called the “City of Gentle People,” which is the kind of tourism-board epithet I usually ignore. Here it had a literal ring. People gave me directions without being asked. The waiter at a seafood stall on the boulevard spent fifteen minutes explaining the difference between two types of squid before I ordered. The city moves at a pace determined by its two universities — Silliman (founded 1901 by American Presbyterians) and Foundation University — and both institutions give the place a reflective, slightly bookish quality that distinguishes it from the more commercial coastal towns.

Silvanas and the Sweet Architecture of Dumaguete

I ate silvanas on my first morning. The silvana is Dumaguete’s signature pastry — a disc of cashew meringue cookies sandwiching frozen buttercream, coated in breadcrumbs that give the whole thing a paradoxical crunch. I bought a box of eight from Sans Rival Cakes and Pastries on San Jose Street. They lasted forty minutes. Lia, who is generally skeptical of things described as “famous local sweets,” ate four of the eight and went back for more the following day.

The other essential stop is Lee Super Plaza’s row of coffee shops and the cluster of cafes around Silliman’s campus, where the campus trees are enormous and old enough to make the student conversations happening beneath them feel appropriately significant.

Apo Island

The real reason to linger in Dumaguete is what lies 45 minutes offshore by outrigger boat: Apo Island, a volcanic outcrop with a marine sanctuary that has been community-managed since 1982 and is, in my estimation, one of the better arguments for what protected marine areas can achieve. The water clarity around the island is extraordinary. The coral is dense, varied, and populated by enormous numbers of fish — parrotfish, surgeonfish, lionfish, schools of fusiliers moving like shifting curtains. And the turtles.

Green sea turtles here have been habituating to human presence for decades and are correspondingly unbothered. I floated above a hawksbill turtle for several minutes as it grazed on coral in eight meters of water, turning occasionally to surface for air, completely indifferent to my presence. I am not a person who uses the word “transcendent” without irony. I am going to use it here.

Twin Lakes and the Inland Road

The crater lakes of Balanan and Danao sit in the mountains forty minutes from Dumaguete, accessible by a road that climbs through sugarcane plantations and small barangays where roosters patrol the roadside. Balanan is the lower lake, ringed by dense forest; Danao is smaller and higher, its water a deeper shade of green. Motorized boats are prohibited on both, which means the surface is perfectly still in the mornings, mirror-reflecting the treeline and the occasional egret landing.

When to go: December through June is dry and reliable. August through October brings the most turtle activity around Apo Island, with the clearest visibility in March and April. Avoid typhoon season for boat trips — October and November can be rough.