We said goodbye to our wonderful Odette, Lylou and family, and our village living. We’ll miss the kind people, the playful kids and the neighborhood feel.
But we’re off to the tourist paradise (we’re told) of El Nido. We were to catch a 10am van and hauled our things up the mud trail to the Basketball court used as the neighborhood landmark for pickups and dropoffs, but after calling, no no it will be 11am because we’ll be last to picked up. So back to odette’s (sorry Odette) for a little more HP time for Chad and Alys and some play outside for Marion.
So back up at 11am (or shortly after) and this is where chad starts to regret my American-ness I’m not wanting to be the hold up and he feels we should embrace “Filipino time” as time wears on and the sun beats down I see what he’s saying. We buy pan de sal and pancit off the street as it’s getting to be lunch and continue to wait in the heat. Around 11:50 the van shows up. No explanation or apologies…Filipino time!!! Gaaah. But happy it’s there.
So we’re finally off. Fed a bit and dripping sweat but now happily in an air conditioned van (and praise Jesus we’re in the front row! Didn’t know if my carsickness could handle the back row and being last in had feared the worst…so another gratitude). We set off down the road and I notice a dinging/beeping. Like an alarm for the drivers seatbelt maybe? And it just keeps going and going. Is no one else bothered? Maybe 10 minutes in he stops and goes and reshuts the back door. Oh! Door ajar. Sweet. Good catch. Oh wait, that didn’t fix it! It’s still ajar! And now it just continues it’s nail on chalkboard alert for the next 5 1/2 HOURS!!! You would think I could tune it out with my nursing background of having alarms and beeps going…but I like to FIX those beeps. So they don’t. I know this really shouldn’t be taking up so much retelling time, but it was really grating for me. Obviously. The whole time. (Minus the brief times I could drown it out with music, but even that was hard and often only one ear to share with Buoy and talking to Buoy etc). So that wasn’t ideal.
Also not ideal? Marion getting carsick. All the way carsick 🤢 poor thing 🤮. I was pretty impressed with how she and we handled it. Amen to ziplocks!! For puke bags, for stripping Marion’s soaked clothes and stuffing them in, for having a washcloth that also stuffed into a zip. I think we did a pretty fantastic cleanup job. Especially considering the van never stopped. And it really didn’t even smell! What a champ our little Boo Bear.
And beyond the very unpleasant ride, there were quite a few lovely views. Picturesque justs kept coming to mind. We drove through a lot of…what must have been farmland, loads of rice paddies…in all shades from murky brown water, to shoots of new green, to rich waving grass, to browning tips. And of the many fields, only once did I see a motorized plow, but mostly the traditional image you conjure up in a rice paddy: large gray carabao (Brahma looking cow with the large stick out chest waddle and big horns) pulling a wooden framed plow with a man in shorts up to his calves in the mud behind. For some reason I didn’t expect to see this until Thailand, or Vietnam. Guess I didn’t do enough looking at he Philippine guide books. Happy surprise 🙂
The Adobo Hobos 