#ulog 007: We're gone fishing

Today's experience was extraordinary. Just last Friday, I and my colleagues planned of going to Magat Dam, a hydroelectric power plant in Ramon, Isabela to visit ouf friend Jojo who lives near there. Our main purpose basically was to buy fresh fishes from the fisher folks at the hydro. Since summer is at its peak, water level at the dam is getting lower each day. It has been almost a month without rain here in Isabela and Quirino province. Now is the perfect time to buy fishes since the water level is dropping and oxygen level at the fish cages is also depleting. So the fishermen have no choice but to sell their fishes at very low costs just to cover up their investments, instead of their fishes spoiling without any peso in return.

Fishermen unload their catch from their boats.

Notice the normal water level at the bank of the dam along the boulders.

A customer bargains with a vendor on the price of tilapia and other fishes.

Different kinds of fishes being unloaded from the fishermen's bangka or boat.

Buyers flock the port area to buy fishes. Both re-sellers and consumers go here for the fishes. In the market, a kilo of tilapia costs 120 pesos, burasi (common carp) would cost you 130 pesos a kilo and the bighead carp at 100 pesos per kilo. If you go directly here, you could buy tilapia for 50 pesos a kilo and the carp at 70 pesos a kilo. That's a very big discount for a very delicious meal!

A seller tallies our purchased fishes for payment.

I bought 8 kilos of tilapia and 4 kilos of burasi and bighead carp. My friends bought their own too. we were all happy with our purchase. After we packed our fishes, we went to jojo's house where we had our lunch. We cooked some fishes and we even slaughtered a duck on top of the fresh fish.

Duck is best enjoyed when you burn its skin. We call this insarab in ilokano which literally means burn to give a different taste ad aroma of the dish. We made dinuguan and adobo from the duck.

We made sinigang from the carp which is a pinoy stew with sour and savory taste of tamarind.

Cooking is best done the traditional way. this was when we were cooking the adobo.

Today's travel was very rewarding. Wish i could travel more and enjoy aside from being stuck in the office at work everyday. Thank you for dropping by. I hope you liked my post today.