People normally go to Baler to surf. Sabang Beach, the main beach where people go to surf doesn’t exactly have the best sand quality in terms of color or texture. But, 8 kilometers away from Sabang is a cove with white sand beach and clear waters. There’s not a lot of people there, too! Dicasalarin Cove is for me, the highlight of this weekend. It was like discovering a hidden paradise.

But before we go there, let’s go back to the morning after we woke up from last night’s food coma.

Sabang Beach

After waking up, we went straight to the buffet breakfast at the hotel, which I personally enjoyed. I didn’t eat rice, but I had some oatmeal and pancakes.

Check out time was at 12 noon, so we decided to go back to the beach and swim. I didn’t swim, for sure. Only my brother ended up singing. Instead, we took photos, drank more beer, listened to music and just enjoyed the sun.

At around 10:30 AM, we headed back to our resort and took a quick dip at the pool before showering and checking out.

Secret Paradise

After checking out, it was time to head to Dicasalarin Cove. To be honest, I almost didn’t want to push through with going there because it was out of the way back to Manila, and part of me also wanted to get home as early as possible. But, since this was highly recommended by a friend, and Hannah also wanted to check it out, we decided to just go for it. Good thing we did because we could have missed out on this secret paradise.

The road to Dicasalarin cove is not easy. It’s a one way road so there are guards on the entrance and the exit to ensure only one vehicle passes at a time. You literally drive through a jungle and then come out of it to see a magnificent view of the cove.

At the end of the narrow road is this secluded white sand beach with a few cottages and a restaurant. There is an entrance fee of 300 pesos per person, plus 50 pesos per vehicle – but I swear, it’s worth it!

Because we were already showered and everything, and this was already around 1PM where the sun is harsh, we didn’t swim anymore. We took some photos, then had our lunch at their restaurant. Food was really good and quite reasonable in terms of the price and serving.

Since we had very limited time and had to start heading back before it got dark, we spent the last 30 minutes after eating taking photos while my brother had a bottle of beer (the rest of us all passed because we will be driving).

We left Dicasalarin Cove at around 3:30 PM feeling sad that we didn’t get to fully enjoy the place, but still grateful that we were able to visit and experience this hidden piece of heaven in Baler!

The end of the road trip

To be honest, it was such a short trip – two days is not enough to fully explore and experience Baler. But since we headed out with more of the journey in mind rather than the destination, we were happy and content with the things we were able to do in those two days. The road trip itself took up a total of 18 hours out of the 48 and it was equally memorable as the time we actually spent in Baler. Special thanks to Hannah for doing most of the driving, Mhealler for letting us use his car and free gas, and my brother for the entertainment (I could say that he’s the life of the party).

We got back to Manila safely at around 11:30 PM already, had dinner at Big Mama, rested a bit at home, before finally sending Hannah to the airport at 2:30 AM for her flight back to Cebu. It was a long and tiring weekend for sure, but it was a lot of fun. I enjoyed going to a place I’ve never been to before, and being carefree with college friends, just like the old days!