There were five of us left in the now roomier AUV. We could have opted for a faster trip back home via boat but all our heads were screaming for an epic adventure of Neverending Story meets Lord of the Rings proportions. We left Mactan after lunch and decided to spend the rest of the day in Cebu City. We checked into the Cebu Midtown Hotel in Fuente Osmena where my sister collapsed into the bed in a cocoon of sheets and refused to do any walking. So we left her in that state and went to Ayala Center to spend the afternoon.
Later in the evening, dad decided to take a quick shower. We began wondering why we could hear dad fiddling with knobs in the bathroom. we started teasiing him that he couldn't figure out how to use the shower. Upon closer inspection, we realized the shower was busted! Inday was eating a small can of Pic-Nic at that time so she was forced to lick the can clean then hand it to my dad so he can use it as a tabo.
Lost in Translation
The best part of any travel experience is the food. Right beside our hotel was this restaurant called Abuhan Dos which, in its past life, was my mother's dorm back in med school. Outside stood banners proclaiming that it served the best pochero in the city and came with high recommendations from my mother and all her Cebu-loving officemates. The huge bowl of pochero followed the steaming rice and the balbakwa (litid in Manila restaurants) which was practically drowning in its thick, rich sauce. Just writing about it is making my tummy whine like a puppy. The moment the waiter set the pochero on the table, all of us chorused "That's not pochero!" Papang, my paternal grandfather, loved to cook pochero so I know very well what it looks like: pork or chicken with vegetables in tomato-based sauce. Two huge bones brimming with cholesterol-laden marrow and tender beef shanks sunken in clear broth were sticking out of the bowl. I know it's bad manners to stare at your food but I maybe correcting its identity may not be classified as such. My stomach was now staging a revolution and attempting to override my brain by sending impulse signals loosely translated to: "Just eat the thing...it looks good anyway."
I politely told the waiter "But that's bulalo, not pochero."
"Um...no," he politely answered. "That's pochero."
"Really? It looks a lot like bulalo," I whispered while reaching for my spoon.
Maybe it's like that same mistranslation I have with patis and toyo but after landing my spoon in my mouth, I just decided to focus on eating. It was indeed the best pochero/bulalo I ever sank my teeth into although I have some difficulty describing exactly how it tasted. Needless to say, the stuff was delicious with a capital D.
Lost in the Wilderness
The Old Testament chronicles the Israelites plight as they wandered in the wilderness before they reached the land promised to them by God. Like I earlier said, there could have been an easier way to get home but then if you're thrill-hungry, it's a less interesting option.
My uncle recently introduced my mother to an alternative route back home which was more...er...hopping (pun intended) than the traditional boat ride: From Cebu City you'll need to drive for about an hour to an hour-and-a-half to Toledo City then take a Ro-Ro (Roll in, Roll out) for another hour-and-a-half to San Carlos City, Negros Occidental. San Carlos City is a roughly two-hour drive from Bacolod City where we can then take a fast craft home. So we decided to give that one a go.
We checked out of the hotel at 5:30 AM. It was still dark outside as Ariel handed me the map. For the entire duration of the trip, I assumed two roles: navigator on the road and ritratista off road...which meant I would see very little of my face in any of the photographs to be developed. I took out mom's flashlight as we tried to figure out how to get out of Fuente Osmena and into the highway which would lead us to Talisay, Naga then Toledo. We had to be in Toledo before Yes, we did get lost as the street signs were either invisible in the darkness or were too small to be noticeable. We did manage to get to the highway and it was pretty much smooth sailing from there on...until we got a flyover and we had to answer the million-dollar question: "Up or down?" The best way to get an answer was to ask for directions and we figured the best person to get the answer from was a tricycle driver since they always seem to know the best routes in and out of anywhere.
He told us we could take the flyover since that would lead us to Toledo but he added that it would take us through Naga to Toledo. However, he said, he could suggest a shortcut if we were up to it which, according to him, was nearer and would take us Toledo in a lesser time. In the morning darkness I could make out a lightbulb hovering about his head.
"You could take Manipis," he suggested. "It's a shorter route and takes you straight to Toledo." He then motioned to a road that stretched out behind him.
It was like straight out of a nature movie gone bad (think Lake Placid or Dante's Peak). Five heads peered out of the car to survey a road which disappeared into the mountains.
We should have known something was not right. For starters, my uncle never suggested that road. He was a Cebu frequenter so if there was a better route than what he had suggested, he would have given it to us. But no, he never said anything about a road whose name alone suggested want, either in terms of width or thickness.
Then my mom let out a little whine of protest. "Manipis? That's a scary route. And the road's not good."
Again, we should have heeded the warning overture which waxed and waned about our deaf ears. But no, Mr. Nice Tricycle Driver was not about to let his bright idea go to waste. "That was a long time ago," he argued. "Now the road is paved and is wider. Even buses take that route"
We glanced at the clock on the dashboard which read 6:10. Maybe my uncle had not known about the road improvement in Manipis. Besides who was to doubt a tricycle driver from the area, right?
So on we trudged up the route I call "the road less travelled." The view was beautiful as green mountains soared past us on both sides of the road. A river dotted with huge boulders weaved alongside the left side of the road. My mom then launched into story-telling mode, telling us that the first and last time she had gone through Manipis was in her days in med school. The name means "thin" or "narrow" and was named such because it was good enough to accommodate only one vehicle at a time. The entire length of Manipis is carved out of a mountainside and so just think of the possible dilemma which awaits two vehicles approaching each other from opposite directions.
Whatever apprehensions we had dissipated with the altitude as my mom commented that the road had indeed been widened as we met a significant number of cars on their descent. And besides it did not seem all too far-flung as we realized that an entire community resided up in the clouds.
The first sign of trouble started as we chugged up the road and realized that we were meeting less and lesser cars as the clock ticked. The road which Mr. Nice Tricycle Drive boasted to have been widened also seemed narrower. As a matter of fact, a line was drawn right in the middle to suggest that the road could accommodate two lanes but who was the road painter kidding? Drawing a line does not make the road bigger! There was no way two vehicles, even mini cars, could fit in that road side by side. Well, maybe except Matchbox cars.
Then all of a sudden, Ariel slowed down. I began to ask, "Why are you..." THUD! Ratatatatat!
The paved road Mr. Nice Tricyle Driver assured us would always be under our wheels was gone. We were now traversing a dirt road high up in the clouds when the dashboard clock said 6:45 and we still had over 25 kilometers to go. "Oooohh," I fumed. "If I could get my hands on that driver, I'd...ow!" I hit my head on the window.
Now there was no questioning the view. It was still beautiful with all the mountains, the greenery and the blue sky but if you're in a hurry to catch a 7:30A M Ro-Ro, all you can see are rocks, dust and Mr. Nice Tricycle Driver's bulging eyeballs glowing in the early morning light. On hindsight, I really should have enjoyed the view because I certainly might/would not pass this way again.
Eventually we entered a crossing which led to the highway we should have taken from Talisay through Naga to Toledo. The car was practically flying as we sped down the highway and made a sharp right turn to the puerto at 7:15. My mom and I ran out of the car as if we were in the Amazing Race then straight into the ticket office.
By 8 AM, we were seated inside the Ro-Ro en route to San Carlos City. On the other hand, our car was stuck in the port of Toledo, waiting to be loaded when the vessel was to make its second trip to San Carlos at 2 PM.
Lost in Time
We got to the sugar city of San Carlos at around 10 in the morning. So what do you do with roughly five hours to slaughter in a city which reminded me of my hometown? Honestly, at that point, time proved to be an elusive victim.
First, my dad requested the tricycle driver to drop us off in the city's Gaisano mall. On the way, he asked the driver what else we could see in the place. His answer? He drove us to a walled house in the middle of a sugarcane field and pointed to it. "That's the house of Jules (Ledesma) and Assunta (de Rossi)." I am not sure if it has come to the power couple's knowledge that their home was fast becoming a tourist attraction heehee.
When you're extremely bored and tired to Grim Reaper levels and your hair has not been washed properly in days, a five-hour wait in a new place can be more gruelling than a jog uphill. Nevertheless, we found ways and means to entertain ourselves lest we self-destruct. We first had brunch in their local Jollibee where we noticed that their fries were saltier than usual and I had to stop eating because my the corners of my mouth were burning. Ordering was fun, though. The Cebuano-speaking lady behind the counter was entertaining both Cebuano and Ilonggo customers and was having trouble with neither dialect at that.
We then took a walk around their mall which hardly had any shops open so we took extra care to walk extra slowly so we could at least do away with thirty minutes. We then took the tricycle to another supermarket/department store called HiTop which had the feel of my home's City Square and Marketplace. There they sold clothes, groceries, DVD players, Angel Locsin posters and, mind you, stacks upon stacks of Ma Ling meatloaf in outrageously low prices which, just a couple of days earlier, was ordered to be pulled out of shelves because of an alleged formalin contamination.
My dad and I then suggested dropping by their Catholic church. Visiting rickety old churches is a habit I picked up from my dad. There was barely anyone inside the church. In one side was an enclave which housed the statues used during Good Friday processions. Right in front of the entrance was a blackboard teeming with marriage announcements it almost looked like it was a fluttering wing. A quick glance left me wondering whether I would have been married off before I reached 25 if I lived in this place.
If you ask people there where you should go to just "hang out," the unanimous answer would not be the mall but a place called People's Park. It's an open space overlooking the sea which sort of looks like Nayong Pilipino meets Disneyland. It has benches and bamboo bridges, rusting locomotives and ponds, waterfalls and benches, Pagoda-like structures and more benches. walking around and taking pictures later proved to exhausting so we sat inside one of the pagodas and started opening the chips inside my dad's backpack when it started to get too quiet.
When my mom went out for a bathroom break, she spotted a videoke machine. We had about an hour to spare and I guess, she wanted to leave San Carlos with a bang. So the four of us started an impromptu concert in People's Park with the boy manning the food joint as sole audience. My dad took out the songlist and declared "I am going to sing 'Turn Me Loose,'" a reference to the Elton John classic "Skyline Pigeon. "A little while later, another friend of the boy joined him and by the time we were done with wailing loud enough to jolt all the ghosts within a hundred meters back to life, there were already three people snickering behind us.
By 3 PM, the AUV had lumbered out of the Ro-Ro like a tired animal. As we piled into the backseat, I said goodbye to the miles of sugarcane dancing with the wind. Just ahead, the mountains once again loomed before us a like a giant monster.Information you might find helpful:
Abuhan Dos
F. Ramos Street, Cebu City (near Fuente Osmena)
Tel. no. (+6332) 2531157
Cebu Midtown Hotel
F. Ramos Street, Cebu City
http://www.cebumidtownhotel.com
