my summer vacation’s almost over and id say it was great fun. one of the things i enjoyed the most was going to cogon market. yes, cogon market. it’s kinda like quiapo in manila, the center of all legal and illegal trade. it’s where all public transport converge, and i mean all! if you can figure out how to navigate yourself around cogon market you wouldnt get lost in cagayan de oro (well, not really – if you can figure out nazareth then youre bound to survive cagayan). all you could possibly need is found there (well almost). it’s where i get my pirated cds. and it’s where i do my ukai-ukai (i bought a pair of speedo black swimming shorts for PhP40 only). it’s where we go to eat chicken ala cart and puso when we find ourselves hungry late at night. but the one thing i recently experienced and enjoyed is eating inside the market. the scene would be your typical market with people screaming and the heat invading your sweat glands like ants invading your picnic. the smell is, well, interesting. you could smell the canals and the raw meat and the stale water, fish and its entrails, rats, people and more people, etc. etc. despite all that, youd be surprised to find really good food (besides, most of the food you eat out of cogon market is sourced there). my cuzin, manong alain, took me out for lunch at the SM (sulod sa mercado). i was to partake of the notoriously famous (famous because it’s really good, notorious because you eat it with rats the size of cats scurrying about you) humba they serve in cogon. id say it was one of the best ive had. the meat’s really tender and jellyish, the sauce is very humba, perhaps the kind of stuff borne out of dreams only. the whole scene wasnt mind-blowing but the experience was. if you non-cagayan-anons can visit us here perhaps i could take you there and have a taste of what humba should taste like. 🙂