Part 2: What a long strange trip it’s been
Finally I am on the bus and I find myself only thinking of the small girl that I became so attached to within such a short time. First, I am given the front seat where I can take pictures and video, then they give to me a seat with a better view that only special people tend to get, that folds down onto the stairs.
Through more barrios we travel until we are out of the town, we come into some farmlands and small villages along the way. There are more coconut trees now, with outcrops of communities along beautiful rivers.
The road narrows and winds through steep terrain as the shanties seem to even come closer to the road where families sell citrus that looks like limes. Roads that seem to the eye only to be wide enough for small cars to travel safely, carry large vehicles such as this bus and others. Oncoming vehicles come a fraction of a inch of each other traveling at high speeds, the driver of our bus sometimes drove at 120 kilometers per hour. I see people, even children sometimes by themselves walking on the roadway so close that I swear I can hear their heartbeat. But the driver has warned them of his approach and they know what’s going on anyhow, for this is the law of the jungle where only the fittest can survive.
I think there is an unwritten law saying that you can’t pass unless it is a blind curve with people there, and there must also be a much larger vehicle coming straight at you. My eyes have never beheld such intense beauty and at the same time I feel I want to know the moment and place where I possibly might die. There is no amusement park with their roller coasters or other fright rides that I can compare to this.
I pay no attention to the video movie that I can’t understand anyhow, I am wired directly to the window in my shotgun seat. I wonder if the others know how outrageously gorgeous this is, or are they just used to this because they don’t have anything else to compare it to. I must look like a child at his first candy store spree.
I am extremely exhausted but my eyes cannot close because for every corner or turn, just as I think I’ve seen it all and nothing can come close to the view prior, something comes up full of splendor to take me over the edge, one step closer to heaven. On the bus I have met new friends (kaibigan) that point toward something I’d appreciate, and after 18 hours in my seat glued to the window they suggest it would be wise for me to rest and maybe get some sleep for they will awaken me to anything of interest.
On this journey we have stopped three or four times for roadside eateries and restroom breaks, there are few gas stations out here. There is a charge for everything. Sometimes there is no plumbing and no toilet paper stocked, flushing is done with a bucket of water that someone has to carry from the outside. The cost for this is one pesos.
I finally give in to the fatigue and get about an hour of rest, when one of my “kaibigan” awakens me. The bus has stopped and I wonder what is wrong. There is a full moon outside as he brings me up to the front and shows me a volcano of noticeable size. We are half there at Mayon and this would be a lovely site in the daytime. Once again I am taken aback by their kindness for I understand that they did this for me even though I could not film it. Yes, I’m now awake once again, climbing past the volcano high into the hills and the roadway is still much alive with the lanterns burning in the store huts hoping anyone might stop.
At around 3 a.m. we arrive at the end of the road and must now take a ferry across to Samar, the third largest of the Philippine islands. Close to 20 buses and other trucks drive into the nose of this ship. Once again there is a video playing onboard and once again I do not wish to sit and view it. I go to the upper deck and I’m greeted by the captain and his apprentice. Off the side of the ship are three outriggers with people yelling up to the American, but I do not yet understand Tagalog. Others are tossing pesos to them from the ship, three levels high. They jump from the outriggers into the water, dimly lit from the ships lights.
To get some money, they risk their life diving for the pesos before it disappears into the dark bottom of the sea. I am up on the top of the deck for this four-hour ride across strangely calm waters with the moon reflected on it. The air is warm like a tropical dream. Dawn breaks and I am able to make out what once were distant shadows. They are scattered islands filled with coconut trees everywhere. There are deep valleys and unspoiled beaches
that can now be seen through my zoom lens.
We finally make our journey back to land as we arrive in Northern Samar. It is a quaint fishing village, and I watch the bus being unloaded from inside to the dock. We now must drive from the north of the island across to the south, then eastward. That will take about six hours. I’m not surprised that another video is put into the V.C.R. and the television comes alive with video karaoke. Someone takes the microphone and sings the words an “ABBA” time. They want me to sing and politely I refuse until a Beetles song plays and I try to belt out some good old American singing. Well, I’ve done my best, embarrassing as it is. I’d like to see this happen back in the States on a Greyhound. Since I have been here almost everyone I see is having fun in whatever way they can find it.
Here we are; this is my stop. I get off and transfer to a jeepney for only a few more miles where for the next month and a half Eastern Samar will be my home with my Nanay and the rest if the family whom I have not yet met.
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