Compostela Valley — Gold Mine Heritage Tour

The province now known as Davao de Oro, gold of Davao, was for decades called Compostela Valley, and gold is woven deep into its story. This full-day heritage tour explores the region's mining past from its capital of Nabunturan, recounting how a single discovery transformed these mountains into one of the great gold-rush frontiers of the Philippines.

The province holds one of the largest gold deposits in the country, with ten of its eleven towns home to gold mines. The most legendary is Mount Diwalwal (Mount Diwata) in nearby Monkayo, where gold was first found in 1983 by a Lumad named Camilo Banad, sparking a frenzied rush that swelled the mountain's population to over a hundred thousand within just a few years.

The tour traces this dramatic history, the fortunes made and lost, the small-scale miners who flocked here, and the environmental and human cost that eventually led the government to declare the area a mineral reservation in 2002. It is an eye-opening look at a side of the Philippines few travellers ever see, framed by the rugged highland scenery of southeastern Mindanao.