Salinas Salt Springs

White Salt Terraces On A Hillside Two Hundred Kilometres From The Sea, Worked For Salt By The Isinai For Centuries · Bambang, Nueva Vizcaya

SALINE SPRINGS RISE ON A HILLSIDE IN NUEVA VIZCAYA, TWO HUNDRED KILOMETRES FROM THE SEA, AND AS THE WATER SPREADS AND EVAPORATES IT LEAVES WHITE MINERAL TERRACES DOWN THE SLOPE - rimstone pools and crusted ledges that look, in photographs, like a small Pamukkale in the middle of Luzon. THE ISINAI WORKED THIS SALT FOR CENTURIES, boiling the spring water down in a region where sea salt had to be carried over mountains, and the springs were a genuine economic asset long before anyone photographed them. BE HONEST: IT IS SMALL. The terraces are a fraction of the size the photographs suggest, THE FLOW VARIES AND THE WHITE IS BEST AFTER DRY WEATHER, there is no visitor centre, no ticket office and almost no management, and the access road is rough. IT IS ALSO GENUINELY STRANGE and about twenty minutes off the road that everyone drives to Banaue. Come after dry weather; in the wet months the flow washes it and the white reads grey.

Salinas, Bambang, Nueva Vizcaya, Bambang, Nueva Vizcaya, Philippines

SALINAS IS IN BAMBANG, NUEVA VIZCAYA, roughly SIX TO SEVEN HOURS FROM MANILA on the Cagayan Valley road - and it sits close to the route almost everyone takes toward BANAUE and the Cordillera, which makes it a detour rather than a journey. THERE IS NO GATE, NO TICKET OFFICE AND ALMOST NO MANAGEMENT; a small local fee is sometimes collected and GUIDES CAN BE ARRANGED IN THE BARANGAY. THE FINAL ACCESS IS A ROUGH ROAD followed by a short walk. THE TERRACES ARE WHITEST AFTER A RUN OF DRY WEATHER and are duller and greyer in the wet months, roughly June to October, when the flow washes them. THE SURFACE IS SLIPPERY AND THE RIMSTONE IS FRAGILE. There is no shade, no shop and no facilities of any kind - bring water.

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