BALUARTE: A Wildlife Sanctuary at the Heart of Ilocos Sur

I love to travel and I love animals, and that love lead me to a place where I can enjoy both. It is a very rewarding experience for me when I visited Chavit Singson’s Fortress… BALUARTE.

Baluarte just a ten-minute drive from Vigan City proper. Baluarte is a wildlife sanctuary dedicated to facilitating education, protection, and conservation of endangered species and other wildlife animals.

Unlike other zoos here in the Philippines where all animals were secluded in a cage and tourist can only view them, at Baluarte animals can freely roam around(well, except for the tigers, it is understandable that they are in a cage hehehe 🙂 ) where tourist and visitors can interact, touch, feed these animals and enjoy the safari experience.

Here are some of the animals that I encountered inside the Baluarte.

Baluarte also has a very educational daily Animal Show where they showcase different animals from the wildlife.

During the animal show, they allow audiences to participate.

If you don’t want to walk around Baluarte since its a big place, you can ride a pony ride to tour around for a certain fee.

Another attraction at Baluarte is Butterfly Garden, where you can appreciate green and colorful scenery and of course the different breeds of butterfly.

Garbage segregation is also well implemented inside Baluarte, so be careful throwing your trash because the animals roaming around might eat it and get sick or die. Throw it to designated trash bins or put it in your pocket.

If you need souvenir items for pasalubong it is available inside Baluarte for a very reasonable and affordable prices.

Outside Baluarte, there’s wide array of souvenir items also available for tourists. I am really amazed on the prices of their souvenir items, they are VERY AFFORDABLE, for example a white souvenir shirt which usually cost 200 and above at other tourist destination, but in Vigan they only sell it 100-150 pesos in all designs, prices only varies for the colored shirt.