The Cambuhat River and Village Tour: Packaging What Comes Naturally

In some places, people go to great lengths in the name of tourism development. In Cambuhat, we discover a charming village that need not reinvent itself.

By Reigh P. Monreal,
CRM/IEC Specialist, CRMP

e cautiously sidle down the side of a bridge and into small outrigger canoes. The harmony between the canoes' bright yellow hulls and the translucent turquoise-green water of the Daet River is, like most things about Bohol, out of the ordinary.

We are a group of six local adventurers egged on by a common friend to try Cambuhat for a different nature trip. After a two-hour drive from Tagbilaran City southwest of Bohol to Buenavista town on the north, where Cambuhat is, we now brace ourselves for this novel excursion into a neighborhood by the river. Buenavista, we learn, is a young and vibrant municipality whose current development efforts are hinged on participatory governance.

Why Cambuhat?
Having experienced Bohol’s other attractions - the beaches on Panglao Island near Tagbilaran, the Chocolate Hills in Carmen and adjacent towns, and the Loboc River cruise - we reckon exploring the northern border of Bohol passing through the western towns will be an eye-opener. Despite having many sites of great tourism potential, the western and northern municipalities, as well as the easternmost rim, have been left out in provincial tourism promotions.

This rustic community is the site of probably one of Bohol’s first eco-cultural tour packages. Called the Cambuhat River and Village Tour, the package was developed and launched last year through a partnership between the local government of Buenavista, the village folk of Cambuhat and the Coastal Resource Management Project. Bookings are coursed through the Tagbilaran-based FCB Foundation, Inc.

Downstream ride
With two of us sitting back-to-back on a small platform onto which the outriggers are tightly fixed, our paddler, Romulo Opalla, tells us that the boat ride 1.8 kilometers downstream along a nipa-fringed watercourse takes about 30 minutes. But with the ebbing tide, this ride over placid waters may take a shorter time.

Romulo attributes the occasional flotsam to yesterday’s heavy rains. The debris we saw near the jump-off point is nowhere in sight. I can imagine how sparklingly clean the river would be during the summer months! Even now, with the heat of the mid-morning sun causing little sweat beads to run down our brows, I feel the urge to dive into the water. But the cool refreshing breeze must be relished, too.

Farther down, the river and the waterways form an intricate labyrinth, punctuated by fish corrals set up at almost every junction. These net-and-bamboo contraptions catch shrimp and mud crabs that stray into the channels during high tide. Romulo points to young mangrove trees between nipa stands that thrive on the embankments. These trees, he reveals, were planted by community members, including himself.

Our good-natured oarsman offers to let me steer the boat, but I opt to enjoy the serene environs of the meandering tributary. After 10-15 minutes, I now see on my right about two or three houses huddled in what seems like an inlet where a boat is docked. Romulo tells us that this boat carries mainland water for sale to residents of nearby Cabul-an island.

Best-kept secret
A few meters down the river is a small hut without walls sitting atop stilts. According to our paddler, this nipa-thatched shack serves as a watchman’s house. The oysters have to be guarded from poachers, he adds.

The mere mention of the mouth-watering oysters excites me no end. These delicious bivalves used to be Cambuhat’s best-kept secret, and it seems they have become the most popular attraction of the village.

Gliding round a bend, the boat slices through the wider expanse of the river and passes by Ambakan, a riverbank whose name means “a place from which one jumps into the river.”

After only a few paddles onwards, our tireless boatman delivers us to Tugbungan, a promontory that marks the end of the river cruise. Atop this limestone cliff that juts from the riverbank is a bigger hut, also with nipa roofing and without walls, where some members of the local organization of women have been waiting to welcome our group. In one corner is a little store bedecked with bougainvilleas lining a fragile bamboo bridge that extends a few meters into a mangrove area.

The sweet smell of grilled seafood greets us amid expressions of welcome from the local folk. They immediately usher us to a long bamboo table filled with steamed shrimp, fried native chicken, vegetable soup, “puso” or rice wrapped in woven coconut fronds and, of course, the fresh oysters of Cambuhat. Served raw, grilled with butter or cheese, or pan-fried omelet-style, the once lowly mollusk has become a prize catch for those of us who cannot find them in the wet market.

While our hands are busy picking here and dipping there, the hosts sing with fervor Buenavista’s official hymn. Ellen, our organizer, tells us that a local resident can dish out poetic lines impromptu, but he is not available today to entertain us. More songs, then one of our hosts explains how oysters have changed the way of life of some households in Cambuhat.

Oyster culture
The culture of these delicious bivalves was previously introduced to the community in 1989, but because of various technical and financial problems, it was not sustained. With the help of one of CRMP's aquaculture specialists, Andres Amejan, the practice of oyster culture was successfully revived.

Oyster culture does not require any complicated procedure. Four or five empty oyster shells are tied to a nylon strand about one meter long. The strands are then suspended underwater, either beneath bamboo rafts or from a suspension line set up near the riverbank. The strands are installed six inches apart, with the topmost shell about one foot above the water level at the lowest ebb tide and the lowermost shell about one foot from the riverbed.

If the oyster hangings are place at the right time (during the spawning season of oysters, which happens only twice a year), reddish spots, which are actually oyster juveniles, will appear in a week and cling to the empty shells. After a month, the muck excreted by the growing oysters must be removed, or it will bury the developing oyster colony. More frequent cleaning-up is required as the oysters mature. In six months, the shellfish is ready for harvest. Each strand now supports four or five bunches of oysters and is sold at a farmgate price of Php15-25, depending on quantity.

Oyster production in Cambuhat is done by families. Each of the participating 38 households is assigned a portion of the river, at least 50m2, for shellfish culture. With a larger area, a household can suspend as many as 4,000 strands. If each strand sells at an average of Php15, 3,500 strands can generate about Php52,500 in gross earnings. The 500 strands deducted from the total serve as adjustment for household consumption and poaching.

An oyster grower tells us that more than 80,000 strands have been harvested from the river since May 1999. Because of the high demand, each household has to set aside about 1,000 strands as source of empty shells for the next production cycle. Thus, to retain the shells, the growers process the meat into ginamos, a popular meal appetizer, which they also sell at Php25 per lapad (rum bottle).

Looms and brooms

Uphill from the promontory, we discover more of Cambuhat’s charms. Walking past buri palms lining the road, we learn that a weaving industry utilizing strips from buri leaves have been preserved by some families. Indeed, we see the womenfolk strip young palm leaves and weave saguran cloth using age-old looms set up under their houses.

At our next stop, an old woman demonstrates how a broom is made from fiber processed from the stalk of the buri leaf. Her husband tells us that the community also produces starch from the pith of the plant’s trunk. The starch is made into palm pearls or landang, an ingredient in many coconut-flavored snack foods. In this community of unassuming residents, the lowly buri has actually replaced the coconut as the “tree of life”. The old folk swear they survived on buri during the World War II, and the intermittent periods of famine in the ensuing years.

In a carpentry shop several meters away, a young lad fashions back-scratchers, spoons and forks from coconut shell and wood from a local fish-tail palm called patikan.

Meanwhile, we notice that some backyards have separate garbage pits for biodegradable and non-biodegradable materials, something that amazes and humbles those who are environmentally aware yet do not practice proper garbage disposal.

Pastoral scenery
Nobody gets hungry in this resource-rich village by the river. Banana, pineapple, rootcrops and a variety of vegetables are planted in every nook and cranny. Growing abundantly in the wild are sagisi palm, tipolo trees and several bamboo species, all of which have great economic potential. For those looking for something more exotic, a local vine called unlan-unlan sa halas or snake’s pillow is a good conversation piece.

We stray into a lowland area where young and old villagers harvest irrigated rice and thresh the cereal bundles beside the paddies and under a coconut grove where goats, cats and dogs cavort in wild abandon.

Cambuhat lives up to its name. Buhat means make, create, work and toil. Here in Cambuhat, we see joy, self-sufficiency and dignity in the faces of villagers keeping their hands busy with productive endeavor.

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