New misadventures in Low-FI

After my plans changed yesterday I have found a new plan for the next daytrip on my tour. I want to go down to the Tabon cave home to the first man ever found in the Philippines. But I lost my trust in the tour agencies so I just go down there on my own instead - it is a lot more reliable.

 

Well I start to move down there. I have to find the place the bus is leaving from I think this is gonna be no problem - just go down to the central part of town and I will find it. But no - the buses is not leaving from there. Someone tells me the bus is leaving from the market area - hence I go down there - and I can not find the bus terminal. I start to feel a bit stupid but I get on a tricycle and tell him to get me to the bus terminal.

And of we go. The bus terminal is at the market - but it is at the market at San Jose and not the market in town which I had assumed.

 

Well the clock is ticking and it is now a bit after 7 so I am late for the 7 o'clock departure but come on this is the Philippines - there is no way the bus is leaving at time so I will probably have no problems catching it. I actually expect I will have to wait a while before the bus will be leaving. I get of at the bus terminal - and yeah the bus is there. But it is not the 7 o'clock bus it is the 8 o'clock bus!! Well I assume the 7 just left minutes before and this one will take of at 8.30-8.45 or something like that. Then suddenly five to eight the driver gets in the bus and starts the engine.

I am a bit confused why will he start the engine already? There is no way we are close to the departure time.

 

Eight o'clock sharp. And the bus takes of. WHAT. This just can not be happening. It got to be a mistake. A bus leaving at time in a developing country - it is just unheard of - we will just be doing circles around the area for the next 20 minutes to pick up more passengers. But no we are actually leaving.

 

After we have been driving a while a strange sound appears. It sounds like a flat tyre. And yeah we got a flat. Nobody leaves the bus except the driver and the conductor. They start to change the tyre - and then we continue along the road. Finally we get to Quezon City the jumping of point to Tabon Cave.

But it is 12.15 - and the museum closes at 12 for lunch. Hence I can not get to organize a boat before 1. The next disappointment is the last bus leaves at 3 in the afternoon and not at 5 like I thought. Great this means there is no way I can get to go to the cave and still be on the last bus of the day. I decide I don't really want to spend a night in this town - especially given I left all my stuff in Puerto and they surely will charge me for the night even if I don't get back there. I just settle to see the museum and have a walk around the market in town instead. It is an ok little museum but it is not worth a 4 hour bus journey to go to it.

 

I return to Puerto and back there the traffic chaos is even worse than usual - and I don't know why. But when I get to the main street it turns out it is closed to traffic.

It is the last day of the month long festival and they are setting up the longest seafood grill in the world. There will be a lot of seafood in town tonight.

 

I meet up with some people to go for the seafood and it is not raining for the first time in days. At eight there is a rocket launched and this seems to be the sign for the grill to be started. There is a big fire going on the grill - but the seafood is far from ready. We end up walking along the grill - which is broken at a few spots. And they start moving some fish and other seafood on to the grill but it will take forever to get some and we are starving - so instead we give up on the seafood and go to the central square to get something to eat. There is a bad playing and it actually sound like they are pretty good. At least when you are not paying too much attention to the music because just before we are leaving they decide to play Zombie - and they are struggling a bit when I start to listen to it. The next day we realize the grill was also struggeling and  because of gaps in the grill they missed the record.