Iloilo: San Joaquin Church and Plaza at Dusk

As soon as we found ourselves energized, I asked my friends to check out from our hotel, City Corporate Inn Iloilo, and head to the southern part of Iloilo to see one of the province's prime jewels - the San Joaquin Church.

Praised and well-admired for its intricate and very outstanding stone carvings, we took more than 30 miles down south of Iloilo to see this majestic church that will share us the great history of 10 Bornean Datus who came here on this island.

I'm actually clueless as to what to expect other than the church when we took a public jeepney from Super to San Joaquin. Though, I know that this trip would be fun, we underestimated the traffic that killed our time going out of the city proper. With Php60.00 per person fare and 1 and a half hour travel, we reached the town of San Joaquin saying goodbye to the sun and welcoming the cold night.

It wasn't part of the plan, really, to catch the place at dusk, but seeing the church in a kinda shadowy image made our trip kinda unique - or so we believed.

The jeepney driver dropped us off at the San Joaquin Plaza, a plaza fronting the church and the People's Center. The scene wasn't really an ideal scene - deserted. With only one guard at the People's Center who was almost hidden too, the amazing place that we were expecting turned into a creepy one.

They don't have anticipated masses here like in Manila, so by the time we arrived a little pass 6 in the evening here, the church was all locked up and sleeping. We really don't want to scare ourselves, of course, so pumped with high spirits, we bravely checked out the church even though we knew that we will not see everything.

We got to enjoy the facade and the wonderfully made walls of this church , though. It was as majestic as they said it would be. With astonishing off-white colored walls depicting the story of this great town, you'd feel at home instantly. Just don't look inside the church, because with its pit black shade, you'll see nothing and it will somehow creep you out. 

Okay, let's add two kids on that scene.

I told you, we really don't wanna scare ourselves out that night, but if you are kinda busy capturing of what is left with the light and the subject, then suddenly there are two kids standing right beside you that you don't know where they came from and how it happened that you didn't notice them coming...

No, we don't wanna scare ourselves out. :)

It took us some minutes before we decided to talk to them, and thankfully, they were not those kind of kids that were already haunting our imaginations. They knew how to speak Tagalog, so we didn't had a hard time talking to them. And since we befriends them, and they probably found our activity interesting, they assisted us on our photo thing that made this trip really memorable. Whew!

After minutes of taking photos and unfulfilled sighs, we decided to leave the place and head to the market near the highway. We bought some food and drinks first before hailing a bus going back to Iloilo City. We planned to see Miag-ao Church too, but since the night blanketed the whole province so early, we decided to cancel that and head back to the city.

We just had a regular non-aircon bus going back to the city, so we really had a great view of the whole province that night. And with that amazing province feel, I told to myself that I'll go back here and explore Iloilo once again. - hopefully with a bright sun. ^_^

Happy rammmpa!