During Holy Week, this place is popular to devotees. People gathered here to repent and to make sacrifices by completing the stations of the cross. Statues are placed in every station signifying each mystery of the Holy Rosary. The place is also conducive for meditation and reflection. Locals say that when you reach the end of the station you could get a good view of the old Mt. Vulcan’s crater. But we chose not to finish the station of the cross due to lack of time. Maybe next time we’ll complete it by then.

Heading to our next stop, we kept on thinking why it was named to be the “Soda Water Swimming Pool”. Must taste like soda. This confusion lead us to be excited reaching our next destination.

Arriving at the said destination, there were a number of people in the pool. People from different walks of life and different ages. Seemed like they were there to unwind and to relax. The place was indeed relaxing and calm as it lies at the foot of Mt. Hibok Hibok. Without further adieu, we hopped in the pool and literally took a taste of the water. With disappointment, the name of the place kept on bugging us, since we cannot taste the soda in it. But some people do attested that it tasted sweeter like a soda, hence the name derived from it. The taste must have changed as with age.

The Old Church Ruins

The Old Church Ruins comprises of the old huge wall surrounding this little chapel. The said church in Catarman, also known as the “Gui-ob Church” was destroyed and partly submerged with debris when Mt. Volcan erupted in the 1870′s.