East Coast

Some of the things I’ve written about my backpacking trip last year, edited for the purposes of this blog, i.e. ‘protecting my dignity’ and ‘readability.’

I found myself leaving at the dead of night, when buses travelled the highways with their windows open. At the terminal, I boarded a shuttle to Butuan, five hours away from where I was. I’d reach that city before sunrise, and the connecting transit to Tandag won’t be on schedule until a couple of hours after. It took me a long time to decide if I should buy breakfast already, considering that if my memory serves me right, the station there is at least a couple of kilometers from the city center. I don’t intend to walk that dark distance.

***

I finally arrived in Lanuza, a fascinating place for those who take surfing seriously, excluding myself. I can’t quite figure out why I decided to go here. They said the waves were good, empty and diverse. I saw it. They weren’t lying. I’d be corrupting their passions if I didn’t agree, but the thing is, the place demands respect. I’m reminded of my displeasure at people who profess their love for the same things that took me a whole lot of time nurturing to fully understand. I wouldn’t say “I love The Smiths” if I didn’t agree completely with Morrissey’s words saying “we hate it when our friends become successful.” It’s easy to post pictures, proclaim in status messages how beautiful or how cool something/someone is; it’s much more difficult to truly mean what you publish. I wondered if I did my serious surfer friends the same irritation by being here. I’m no real surfer.

***

I met this old French guy named Jacques (what else could his name be) who had a riverside chalet in typical tropical design. He’s an architect from Paris, and told me stories of the years he lived in a boat in the Siene. I’ve been eating off canned goods in roadside inns for about four days now, reading Brownlie’s seminal Public International Law for some weird reason that I can only peg on the need to be ironic. Anyway, he served me some grilled swordfish, cumin peppered vegetables and some local shrimp. With beer and some David Bowie in the background, it was an unexpected feast of the poetic variety.

***
Drank with Peter the night before the local barangay elections. The place I’m staying in was empty then, and on the way back from the bay earlier in the afternoon I noticed the proliferation of checkpoints and armed men on patrol. Peter told me how afraid and tense the owner of the resort was the past few hours. He was running for a seat in the Council, and was advised by the police to leave town. Peter was probably worried as well, but I told him this is normal for a place like this. In California where he comes from, nobody cares about elections he says. He told me things about Mexico and Guatemala and Bali and all the places he’s travelled to the past three years. He quit his job as part of a Hollywood production crew to surf the world, and told me Lanuza was up there in his list. He introduced me to Com Truise, a chillwave band he once saw live, and promised me he’d meet me in Manila were we could trade more music.

***

Barobo is a messy, rowdy, wild city. Everyone seemed to be in a hurry, and everyone seemed to be carrying at least three bags. As I elbowed my way through to the dusty disorderly bus station, I noticed all the the piercing stares invited some form of response, as if I’m expected to explain and say “I’m travelling, I’m from Manila.” No doubt, I was wearing board shorts and a straw hat with a giant backpack on and didn’t look assimilated, to say the least. This is the part where the trip had taken a totally unchartered flavor, I thought. The heart of Mindanao. I asked around, almost hopelessly or aimlessly, for the bus that would take me to Lingig. No one seemed to know and it was only by chance that I heard the barker shout the name of the place. I ascended to the double-tired jeepney and found my uncomfortable seat amidst an aisle of assorted vegetables, cans and sacks. On the roof were chests filled with ice and fish, more fruits, charcoal and firewood, chickens, a few cases of beer and retail stuff. I was tempted to ride top load, but was discouraged by my own sense of false safety.

***

I reached Cateel in the sweltering heat of a concrete road, and sweat was trickling down my nape when I finally found a place to stay in. It was a wooden house set in the middle of town where the streets were lined with hardware stores, shops that sold livestock feeds, and generic bakeries. That was also where I would attempt to hire a motorcycle ride for a stretch of beach I’ve been researching on four a couple of months already. I didn’t know how far it was from town, or if there’s even a road to get there. I don’t like being at the mercy of the driver’s terms and not knowing if I’m getting a good deal. But what gives? It’s the Manila in me talking and for sure sincerity and candidness go a long way in places like these. Plus, it’s been almost eight days now, and all the public transport I’ve negotiated has been terribly draining.

***

Travelling by habal habal is by far my favorite way to see the countryside. The driver’s name was Tata, and he’s shown me a lot of interesting places already, including this old plaza where he claims that the Rizal statue in the middle was made by an Italian sculptor. I believed him, particularly because the statue had a refinement unlike any other I’ve seen. The coat-tailed suit had detailed creases and the proportions were perfect. He showed me a beach cove with golden sand and turquoise waters, tucked behind a lush strip of rainforest. He marketed his town well, and even brought me to a place where they sold powdered mountain chili. The best place he took me to was this seven-kilometer stretch of blistering open beach with a scale fit for a military landing. The waves crashed with commitment, and at times I saw them swell over 10 feet tall. From the one end of the stretch, it was impossible to see the other, and I tried with all the assistance my contact lens provided to see beyond the sea mist that hazed the panorama. It became pointless to insist, especially since the big blue Pacific roars in front – a perfect view that divided the midday into sky and sand.

***

I bumped into a barangay official who offered me some lunch at his house. I accepted, not expecting that he’d be serving me fresh lobsters plucked off the reef not far from his house. Over lunch, he told me stories of how the mountains of Compostella Valley were once lush with jaguars and the swamplands in the valleys were the kingdom of the crocodiles. While stroking his white hair, he gestured at the size of a shark they once caught just off the shore. After lunch he invited me to climb up a huge rock that overlooked the ocean where we drank a bottle of Tanduay. It was still quite the height of noon then, but with my shades on, a full belly, a clear sky and the long, peeling barrels from a reef break roaring us by at the distance, there was guilt in complaining about anything really.