Anawangin Cove is located in San Antonio, Zambales, Philippines. You can take public buses from Tarlac to Olongapo and Olongapo to San Antonio Zambales which will consume approximately 5 hours.
If you prefer to travel by car, the trip will only take around 3 hours via SCTex. Upon reaching San Antonio, a 10-20 minute tricycle ride is necessary to take you to Pundaquit (a. k. a Pundakit), the jump-off point to Anawangin Cove and the nearby beaches. From Pundaquit to Anawangin, you’ll need to take a 30-minutes boat ride.
The Anawangin Cove is by far the most popular destination for campers and beach goers alike.Just the mention of the name Zambales will ring a bell for those who have gone to the cove that a trip to Pundaquit is never complete without feeling Anawangin’s mixture of volcanic ash and white sand beneath your feet. Anawangin is the nearest cove from the town proper of Pundaquit. It also is currently the most visited and developed amongst its neighboring coves.
Owned by a local family who also lives in Pundaquit, they make sure that the place is well maintained and the shores are regularly cleaned by it’s caretakers.It is unfortunate that structures such as cement houses or buildings can’t be built behind its shores, due to the fact that seasonal rain and monsoon softens the ground beneath it and waves brought about by the typhoons can easily reach the main campsite. Also, a stream flows from the mountains and through it’s banks during the rainy season. Anawangin is surrounded by mountains of rocks theoretically known to be formed by ages of volcanic activities in the past. But the most surprising phenomenon which has occured in the past years were the growth of pine trees just behind the banks of the cove.
The seeds were brought there by the memorable erruption Mt Pinatubo together with the ash fall. Entrance to the developed and guarded side of Anawangin is not free. This is the left side when you are facing the cove. The owner has made a business out of it by charging visitors a fee of P50 per head for a day trip and P150 for an overnight stay. This is a small fee to ask for people who wants to stay and make use of their manual freshwater pump (poso or artesian well) and also serves as income for the caretakers.
