Patar Beach is one of the beaches where you can go in Pangasinan and it's a place to be for everyone and that is going to be enjoyed by everyone.
One of the beaches of Pangasinan is the creamy sandy of Patar simply called Patar Beach. Even though traveling there takes time for us, still it is a popular destination. Because of that, businesses have boomed in that area.
I can't even recognize the beach that I saw when we first visited here. It was cleaner then meaning not that many cottages along the beach. No sundry stores. No souvenir shops. Now it is crowded and teeming with people. It was a busy beach. There were atm machines even. However, our phones have no network coverage. But who needs to be connected when you are there for fun?
From the town proper of Bolinao, we had to travel about 20 minutes or so to get to the beach. We first inquired for a place to stay. However, every hotel/transient house is full.
We have already booked a room in town. (See El Pescador) However, we wanted a place to stay closer to the beach so that we can stay at the beach as long as we want.
That was the scene when we were at Patar Beach. We were wary to go into the water because of the fear of the virus. We rented a hut where we can put our things while we are in the water. That costs PHP500.00 around USD10.00. That is for an overnight stay already but we only stayed there for about two hours. Regardless if you stay overnight or just for a few hours, the rate is still the same. As much as we wanted to stay longer, we had to go check the hotel that we booked to make sure we have a place to sleep that night.
I was hoping for a better sunset but that was what we were shown that day.
We were hoping the crowd would thin out as it gets dark but it seems everyone will be spending the night by the beach.
We then decided to leave and come back early in the morning.
Once we got to the hotel, we checked in, showered and changed then headed out for dinner in town. Good thing there is still a restaurant that was open that time. After our dinner, we then headed back to the hotel and rested.
When we got there, we didn't stay at the location that we stayed last night. We decided to go to the end of the beach. We were there before 7 a.m. and the beach is packed. Good thing the place we chose to go still had parking space. Even though the whole stretch of the beach is filled with people, there were only a few at the spot we went to.
You can see from the photos above that there were a lot of fishing boats since fishing is the livelihood of the people here.
We didn't rent a cottage this time. We would take turn guarding our things anyway.
The flowers on the left photo have fallen from a tree that I don't know the name of. It is my first time to see them. Of all the beaches that I have been to, it is here that I have seen this. Maybe they were also in other beaches that I went to but it was not their blooming season.
I like how shady the parking lot is. I don't know if you notice the drums on the photo on the right. They were placed above the trees and a hose connects it to the house below it.
We stayed at the beach for an hour or so before deciding to go back to the hotel. We haven't had breakfast yet and we already feel our stomachs complaining. Plus the heat of the sun can be felt already. We had to say goodbye to Patar. This is one of the bad side of traveling to far destination. You really have to alot a great deal of time to enjoy the place.
The photo on the left is the Cape Bolinao Lighthouse. You can see the whole of Patar Beach if you are there. However, there were a lot of tourists so we just took a photo at the entrance. You have to pay a fee if you want to go to the lighthouse. It would probably be best to go there early to avoid the crowd. When we were there during our first visit, there were no fees for no one was guarding the entrance then. The lighthouse was locked though. I'm not sure if now one can go up there. It was built in 1905 and three engineers from different nationalities built it: An American, a British and a Filipino. Source
The lighthouse is on the right is a replica that can be seen in one of the hotels in Patar. We inquired for rooms but the one available they have is out of our budget. We were here before and we wanted to replicate the photo that we took here but the place has undergone renovations and improvement such that the spot we took our photo has a structure built on it.
So there goes our weekend adventure at the beach. I hope we don't have to wait another 10 years before going back. Aside from the lighthouse and waterfalls, there are also caves that you can explore while there. This time around we didn't go to those places to avoid the crowd.
Thank you all for your time and support.
For additional reading about Boliano, you may also want to check
*All photos are mine. Note that this was originally posted here.
This is my entry to @friendlymoose' contest. For more information, you can check out his post POBphotocontest New Round: TRAVEL.