Oslob, Cebu: weekend of a lifetime

I met Alex Erano from the island of Bohol through Couch Surfer. I was originally going to stay with him in Tagbilaran City but he was headed  my way for a little adventure of his own. Together we put together a sort of itinerary and made a weekend out of it. The ENTIRE first day was consumed by his waiting for the 4pm ferry because the 10am ferry was literally commandeered by the Vice President of the P.I. making a big deal about a housing project in Cebu. Apparently, preparing for the election requires helicopters, ferries, army vehicles, and lots of drama. So our first day was a bit of a waste as far as Alex was concerned, because he has a limited weekend's amount of time for this short but eventful excursion.

I was just walking around trying to get my phone to work. The GSM phone I brought with me has a software problem I've been trying to fix. I'm borrowing a phone from Karen, bought a SIM card, and 'load' for it, but it still won't work. Even landlines won't work for me, only locals. I press the same exact buttons and when I do it, whatever device I'm trying to use simply does not work. So frustrating! I'm going back to living without a phone. The sim card's supposed to work for emergency numbers regardless of anything, so I guess that'll have to do.




Serious Bamboo! - Tumalog Falls

Anyway, besides trying to charge the battery and get my phone to work so I can contact Alex, I walked around Argao, where my bus landed and ended up at the beach (I knew my feet were taking me there long before I could smell the salt). I perched myself on this wall over looking the sand, and one by one over the course of half an hour, the entire neighborhood gathered around me on or near the wall. Entire families and friendship networks showed up to talk, banter, offer me to their young maids, put hats on my head, have me hold their children, and invite me to their homes. So loving! Not a single mocking or ingenuine smile among them. It was a little party there just because I was seeking some alone time with the sound of the waves. So I have open invitations to stay or paddle a boat around in that area whenever I want, and some good memories to go with them.

Puppy Love

I ended up having to backtrack up to Taloot because Alex didn't look into his travel plans as much as I expected him to. I found out when we met up that he just had a vague idea of where we might go, he really just wanted to follow my lead and learn why the "gypsy life is cool, bro!" Alex is a goofy, 27-year-old guy who is extremely nice and hospitable. He has hosted so many travelers from all over the world on his couch in Bohol, and he's lived vicariously through them all. What does goofy mean? He's a nurse over there, and apparently a 6-year old came in with an infection that necessitated the amputation of his finger. Alex thought, "well, it's not every day you find a finger in the trash!" So he picked it out, brought it downstairs and had it put in a jar of formaldehyde, and gave it to his girlfriend, who looked at him strangely, and said simply, "you're weird". She gave it back to him when she left her apartment and took off to London to study. They're planning to get married and have kids. Alex has trouble breaking out of his shell and thinking outside the social constructs of normal, and yet on some levels he defies normal. I hope he balances out some day.


Sunrise in Oslob

After I backtracked, I took a nap on a bench by the the ferry in Taloot. At one point I struck up a conversation with a random guy nearby who happened to be a local politician who was also present for all of the VP's hullabaloo. Interesting hearing how he had adopted Baringay Taloot as his own family, having grown up there. He told me stories of working as a waiter at a beach resort when he was a teenager, sleeping with all of the foreign women with nothing to lose, getting lots of tips, free food and lodging, and free trips to visit family up north in Cebu City (only about 50km away), his Antonios' Angels crew of cleaning women for the ferry. Nicer than most politicians, especially given that he's on his third, 3-year term in the Barangay where he grew up. But still, I can't stand that politician's smile. You just know from lookin into his eyes that like every other politician he'd done some dirty things to earn or keep his position. Hence the timed insertion of talk about his family and kids.

Alex's ferry finally arrived, and it was obvious he was stressed and frustrated. He had worked the night shift the night before from 12-8am, then packed and left for the 10am ferry, only to be told every other hour or so they would soon be on their way. His ferry became the 4pm afternoon ferry, arriving just as the sun was setting. I say, "Bahala na amigo!" It's a saying that basically means take the shit life throws at you and slough it off. Just let it be. There's no use fighting things you can't control. Unfortunately, through Catholic influence and some warped version of cultural, generational game of "telephone", this saying also became "don't be angry at life or each other, just suck it up and deal with your tragedies; give us a smile!" I didn't mean it in that sense though. It's important to experience negative emotions deeply. I just meant, you're finally through, time for the fun to begin. He took my meaning finally started to relax and focus on the now as we talked. Both of use started the trip tired, but it didn't really hit us until the weekend was over. For now, though, we were both excited to get on the road. Rather than crash at the ferry terminal, we decided to hop on a bus south to Oslob so we could get the jump on whale watching as it ran from 6am-1pm.

We stopped at one company and talked prices (thank goodness Alex speaks Cebuano). And hearing that just to set up tents on the property would cost us 200 pesos, a basic room 800, we decided to try our luck looking for a spot in the forest. We walked along the road and decided to try one more company. They let us crash on the most spongy, full, grass lawn I've ever laid on for the night, for free. Needless to say we went out on the water with them in the morning. The price is double for foreigners, and Alex wanted me to feel less discriminated (lol) so he paid extra so we would pay the same fare. Sweet no? We took turns covering fares for the rest of the trip, and with my memory for numbers I calculated it came out pretty darn even. Awesome. One more odd thing about Alex that became immediately apparent. Food. Since he was born he's had a mental allergy to fruits. All fruits. Doesn't eat hardly any vegetables. His travel food was white bread with some packaged, processed, liquid corned beef stuff. Yum. I had brought some dinner leftovers, nuts, dried peas, and an avocado. That ended up lasting me the whole trip. Timing to build a fire and cook, taking up an hour for food, just didn't seem right given Alex's "What's next?" energy. Not a problem for three days. I survived.

Set up tents (ants were prolific in the grass, otherwise I would have just laid down to sleep), ate food crashed hard just after sunset, and woke up in time for sunrise. Paid 750 pesos each to swim in the water with whale sharks that are baited. I knew that they were baited, and I felt bad, but I caved. Just too amazing to go swimming with whale sharks. What was it like? They're HUGE of course. They take us 100m out from shore to a viewing area using small paddle boats. I counted five different sharks. We were in the water almost an hour with them, trying to remember how to snorkle (hadn't done it except 5 years before, gimme a break : ). They give you an orienation before you go in about how far you should stay away, don't touch, no flash, protect them! Then they bait them with minimal plankton and fish guts, never giving them a break from 6am to 1pm every day to find and eat an actual meal for themselves. It takes some serious amounts of plankton to build these massive creatures. Anyway, the sharks of course, don't follow rules. At one point I was watching one when my ear pops above the water and I hear a half-hearted shriek. I turn around, and by far the biggest of the five sharks is slowly barrelling towards me an arm's reach away. Instinctively, I put my hand out to its nose to let it know I was there (duh, it knows I'm there). People above water say, "Don't touch!" The shark slowly angles around me knocking me with its left fin and then its tail fin. Something similar happened a couple more times. It was absolutely fantastic. Didn't know before I came here that the Philippines is one of the only places in the world where whale sharks consistently find and stay in a bioregion with good habitat for them.

 We walked from sea level up to here, the view from the top

We packed up and walked back up the road to Tumalog Falls. We could either pay 30 pesos each to go up, or we could walk the 3.5km up the road to the Falls. I look to Alex, who has this look of fear in his eyes knowing I'm gonna say, "Let's walk!" I asked several times if it's okay that we walk. Not objecting we head uphill. He'd never walked anything like that in his life, whereas I had done things like walking 10 miles to the bottom of the Grand Canyon and then back up in one day. I had my big pack, and he had this tiny thing that weighed maybe 8 lbs. He was dying after 150m. We slowed our pace and made our way up to the top. I was really proud of him for not givin up, and he felt so good at the top. We paid our 20 pesos each entrance fee to the trail to the Falls. I walked faster than him down the steep incline towards the falls that lay nestled in this small saddle between hills. There on the right side of the road, basking in the sun, was a monitor lizard three feet long! It was surprised by my running down the hill and took off way before I could get a really good look at it, but it was so amazing!

Approaching Tumalog Falls

The falls themselves were the most serene and beautiful falls I've ever seen. It's hard to describe or take a photograph that could do it justice. There were so many terraces and so high up. The water flowed down from different spots pretty evenly about 30' long, about 100' high. It was like two-dimensional healing rain. It was water so the terraces were mineral deposits. We filled our water bottles using my filter, and the water tasted so much better than the sparkletts-style filtered water down in the city. We sat and had lunch washed down with a can of red horse. Two different kinds of lizards skipped or swam across the pond at the base of the falls. Of course, one kid used his sandal to terrify and catch one against Alex and my vehement protests. Must have more of those lizards somewhere else cause the kid was so intent on catching that sucker.


 

Coming back down the hill

Tiki pots on the way to Kawasan

We walked back down the road to where we started and caught a bus to take us around the southern tip and up to Kawasan Falls. Phony guides offer their "services" at the entrance to the obvious trail. After the 50-peso entrance fee, we walk about 1km along the river's flat banks up towards the falls, small communities mushroomed in pockets along the river. The falls itself are a 1/2-km long complex of falls surrounded by bistros, pension houses, and nipa huts. Not serene, not secluded, but still beautiful. Saw some amazing plants and flowers on the way. Alex is a novice swimmer, so I gave some swimming tips in the main pool. I can't forget these three flamboyant gay buys in bikinis who joined the two of us in the pool. Here it's so much more condemned to be gay, and I guess when they do come out it's all or nothing. Like the backlash has to match the level of social repression gay people feel. Just gay men though. Lesbians don't seem to react in the same way. In general, they're actually more feminine than many lesbians in the States, at least that I've seen so far.

Kawasan Falls, the lowest in the complex

Anyways, from there, we hike back to the road and get on a bus up to Moalboal to the famous White Sand Beach there. We took a motor out to the beach. There were three of us on that tiny scooter, including me and my pack. For 8 bumpy kilometers I struggled to stay on that thing using every last once of strength my core muscles would give me. I was so sore the next day. We camped out on the beach, drank a jumbo Red Horse, and marveled at all of the amazing things we did that day as we watched the moon move creep across the sky. I woke up during the night to realize that I had misread the moon; the tide was moving in, not out. So we moved our tents up into the resort-ish areas, hoping we wouldn't be arrested for tresspassing in the morning. The water never made it up to where our tents were but it was close.

In the morning we swam lazily along the coral reef just along the beach. Alex saw a seahorse! I missed out on that one. Saw some amazingly beautiful coral and fish though. He was too scared to go out there, but the reef dropped sharply at the far edge into dark blue water, a complete contrast to the bright teal from the reef.  The beach is white sand because it's entirely ground shells. We walked along the beach for a bit and then decided to make our way back to the road to head back to Cebu.

Dancin' with the Porno Faggots

The one thing in our trip that I had planned and wouldn't waiver on was a heavy metal show that Karen and I had planned to go to since we realized we had that passion in common. It was 15 local bands. Punk, Heavy Metal, Death Metal, Ska, and Anarcho-Punk. As soon as Alex and I got back to Cebu, I made sure he could make it to his brother's place. I went to Roselynne's to cook vegetables. Yay! Then we the trio headed straight to the venue, F & B Bar. Some covers were played but it was almost entirely original music, including an improvisational band of three members that was awesome! Alex met us there midway through. We smuggled in some 65 proof Tanduay Rum and I finally reached a sensable buzz. The bands appreciated me for starting a dancing circle in the place. It was so much fun! Roselynne conked out early trying to digest some gluten her body took to be some sort of insult. We cabbed it back home, dropped Alex off at his brother's, jammed out on the guitar and uke, and slept around 1am.





Bridge to Kawasan



Standing on said bridge

We woke up the same time in the afternoon. I whipped together food and an outline for my talk later in the evening. At 5pm we went to the Cebu Atheists meeting, the group where Roselynne finally found her niche of open-minded thinkers to call home. I was scheduled to be the guest speaker. Roselynne broached the topic of the damage of grammatically misused "agnostic" and "atheist" in practice. She and I facilitated discussion, and we settled on using the terms as qualifiers. Essentially, the spectrum we settled on goes like this: GNOSTIC THEISTS are the radicals who know without doubt that God exists in the manners they were taught by their religions (Hindu, Muslim, Jew, Christian, etc...) AGNOSTIC THEISTS believe there's a God but are open to the idea that this deity might not exist in the way they were taught, if at all. AGNOSTIC ATHEISTS believe there's no intelligent being ordering existence, or at least reject the spiritual beings and indoctrinations of religions, but are open to the idea that a being might possibly exist in a similar manner told by religions. They simply aren't totally sure. GNOSTIC ATHEISTS are radicals on the other side of the spectrum that know without room for doubt that there is no deity, unifying spiritual power or universal dogma. The Philippine Atheists and Agnostic Society may be inspired to use these terms to revolutionize religious discussions worldwide. 


Power plant on the way to Kawasan Falls

Then came my talk/facilitation on challenging sexism in our daily lives. Half of my audience were 18-19 years old, way ahead of their peers when it comes to existential, independent thought. All together, we were able to articulate the many ways that gender is socially constructed and enforced, where gender politics and sexism originated, biological vs. social gender politics, explored hierarchy and power, unconcious vs conscious sexism, specifics in language, in Filipino culture, individual experiences, other power politics regarding genders other than female, religion, family structures, role models for masculine and feminine sexualities, contrasted masculine hierarchy and feminine egalitarian modules of social organization, feminist ideologies, and so many other things. We also talked about ways to approach challenging so many of these things in our daily lives in the face of strict closed-minded rejection. Then we sang songs about gender norms and played a game that helps people empathize with different hierarchical roles. The patrons at Starbucks were definitely entertained by our antics. The talk went for more than 4 hours. We stayed late talking afterwards and then walked to dinner a long way away from the Starbucks where we held the meeting. We got home that night early in the morning and I couldn't help but bathe in the warmth of an amazing four days in a row. Couldn't believe I did so much in such a short amount of time.




Front view of the power plant

Since then, I've done more shopping, more cooking, and more sleeping to make up for the busy weekend. A few lateish party nights, but mostly staying home, working on the blog, and singing. I've learned several new songs since I've been here thanks to Roselynne's amazing musicality and her guitar, Mango. I made four dozen no-bake vegan chocolate peanut butter cookies, one dozen of which were gluten-free oats for Roselynne. It's been heavenly and lazy these last few days. On Tuesday night, I was up almost to sunrise cranking out a song. It's musically and lyrically deep. Really deep. My mental and physical vitality honestly felt drained by the creativity that flowed out. Called it "Floating". It's about living in the liminal space between sleeping and waking, in the now between the past and the future, in a constant state of transition. I've recovered since that came out of me, but I still need to learn the fucker. It's not easy, of course. I can never make life easy on myself. I'm already jottting down ideas for my next song, something light-hearted and simple with a title something like, "I Murdered My Ego (Now for Yours)." I'll probably record that one before the other one. We the trio watched this film Once together, an awesome Irish-made film that was centered around these two awesome musicians living totally different lives in the film than in real life. Completely inspiring personally and musicaly. LOVE IT. WATCH IT. I've also realized that I need a guitar. That's where I'm headed today and tomorrow. Finding a travel guitar. I think it will be necessary for me.
 

Where's the David???

This weekend I'm helping Roselynne move, doing the last few things I want to do here, then moving on to Negros. I was invited to a show there by one of the bands at the metal show I went to last weekend. It also just happens to be the Masskara Festival there during that time, a very colorful Mardi Gras-ish festival, the last four days of which are supposed to be stunning. It opens on Oct 1st (won't make that) and closes on the 23rd. From there it's up to Panay, then Corregidor, then back to Luzon. I'm currently exploring several prospects for helping with Philippine Eagle and other conservation work on the island of Luzon. I'm hoping to pick up a good survival knife in Batangas, see Lake Taal, Banaue Rice Terraces, and, I of course still have to visit my own family in the north. From there I can't miss out on Vigan, a town north of where my family lives (pronounced Vegan!) that is one of the only places in the P.I. that still has buildings left from Spanish Rule. Just a few of things on the list. Don't know when I'll get back to post, but it could potentially be a few weeks, so I hope these posts keep you from getting thirsty till then.

LIFE IS TOO DAMNED SHORT! TOO MUCH TO DO! Some days it's harder to accept that I'll never get to do everything I want to in life. Hence the song I wrote. I feel I really have embraced this fact. Till next time! Please send me messages! Even if I don't know you yet!