Calvin’s Hub

I feel that I should dedicate a short post about the city because I think it’s important for first-time visitors.

From The Airport

To get to the city from the airport, you are pretty much limited to taxi cabs unless you have somebody picking you up. The thing is, taxis from the airport doesn’t want to use the meter. You have to haggle your fare and there doesn’t seem to be a standard rate.

A good price will have to be around P150 to maybe P200 but expect the driver to haul other passengers if there’s still space in the vehicle and you still have to pay for the agreed price.

If you’re travelling alone, what you can do is find other passengers to split the cost of taxi if you want to save some cash. You can also go outside the airport and wait on the highway for a passing taxi for a metered fare. It’s quite rare though and the meter will probably reach around P125.

The City

Cagayan de Oro City is pretty small with the center being Divisoria so better aim for a place to stay near the area but not directly in the vicinity because it can get loud at nights especially on Fridays and Saturdays.

There are three big malls in CDO (Ayala is still undergoing construction). The SM is located in the outskirts of the city. Gaisano is near the highway. The most popular one is Limketkai Mall and its expansion has a lot of excellent dining places to hangout especially at night. It’s like the Greenbelt of CDO.

Mode of travel is mainly by jeepney and the fare as of this writing is P6 within the city.

Must-try Places to Eat

Here are the places where you must aim to eat during your stay:

• Dear Manok. Chicken Inasal and Buko Halo-halo. The place is a landmark already in CDO.
• Kagay-anon Restaurant. Unfortunately we weren’t able to try it out. Heard their pinakbet is really good.
• Butcher’s Best. They say they serve the best barbeque and sisig in CDO. What I like about is the price of the food. Very cheap!
• Consuelos Steakhouse
• Sunburst Fried Chicken. Buffet breakfast for a hundred bucks (or is it 120?).

Better ask the receptionist in your hotel for directions.

Staying at Pearlmont Hotel

For our accommodation, we stayed at Pearlmont Inn (Limketkai Drive) which is walking distance from Limketkai mall (around 10 minutes) and is also near Cucina de Oro which serves pretty good Chicken Inasal at a reasonable price.

The room is not that high-end but it’s a pretty decent place to stay for the night. There’s aircon and Cable TV and for P1400 a night, you have complimentary breakfast each morning. Breakfast isn’t that great though but I’m quite picky when it comes to food.

The staff are nice and pretty helpful and they even allow us to store our luggage while we go on our overnight Camiguin trip. There are lots of jeepneys plying that area so it’s easy to commute to and from the hotel.

My only qualm is that they don’t offer free WiFi. You have to pay P100 to use it for four hours. There are no nearby internet shops as well. If we want internet, we have to go to Bo’s coffee near Lim Ket Kai. Hehehe.

On our first day when we land at the airport, we had a quick lunch and we’re off to the Cagayan river for some whitewater rafting adventure. That’s next!

You might also be interested in:

• Cagayan de Oro Trip for Two Part 6: Going to Camiguin
• Cagayan de Oro Trip for Two Part 7: Camiguin Tour
• Cagayan de Oro Trip for Two Part 4: Going to Dahilayan
• Cagayan de Oro Trip for Two Part 1: The Plan

Filed under: Travel