i write the story of my life: Baler, Aurora February 2012

the venti cup of cafe mocha i tried to
consume slowly before the trip

I can never sleep on trips—not even a wink no matter how tired and sleepy I am. So this Baler fieldtrip we had over the weekend gave me another record of being awake for more than 24 hours (38 hours straight, to be specific) for the day before it and on its first day.

What kept me up? I seriously don’t know. When I woke up at 8am last Friday, I dozed off on Saturday night already. I can only be proud of myself for in between I’ve been very productive with all the strenuous activities we had—from school to the beach. Friday night, despite the pressure of being asleep and the torture of the bed weather, I manage not to go out of my mind. As always, my attention was focused on contemplating on my life whenever I had no one to talk to anymore. Aside from that, I kept myself busy counting anything I find on the road—if I’m not checking the time.

Saturday, 12:21 AM. Just left the UP premises and for some reasons, there’s a fireworks display in the QMMC. Not a bad way to start hitting the road; plus our driver tuned in to my favorite radio station.

1:05 AM. Heading north already and our group is still hyper. Great, I don’t feel so alone. We later had our first stop over a small gas station when Issa and I had to pee. After a few minutes, the other van (the boys’) had their stop over another small gas station w/ a stall of burger machine where one of them left his pair of shoes. Then we went “gasoline station-hopping” but almost all of those were closed (7/8). Our driver said that crimes like hold up are rampant in the area.

3:22 AM. Just when I thought everything was perfect (almost everybody was asleep and the view from my seat was already the mountains and all) our driver turned off the radio and started playing his CD. His playlist wasn’t so bad. In fact, I love the songs. I just missed sounds goooooddd, mellow, 94-7.

4:08 AM. So this was my favorite part of the trip. We were climbing a mountain whose road has 1 ½ lane. We’re going up so we’re on the right side—the lane closer to the wall/eroding land mass—and no other vehicle was travelling on our left which happened to be just several inches from the cliff per se. Every once in a while, our driver had to panic a little especially when we’d be reaching the unpaved part of the road, turning left/right and when the area was too dark that our headlights could not even bare. Then, we covered 15km up only to find out that the bridge along the way is broken. We came down and looked for an alternative route. Even if our prof had his iPad w/ GPS with him, we we’re surprised. I felt like that I was in a situation where I’d rather choose to be stuck on a traffic jam than to travel that road to nowhere.

5:37 AM. Great, after passing through a creepy cemetery—when I was sure I was the only one awake besides our driver—we had to re-route again due to a river we could not cross. I mean “great” well because I was enjoying the fact that our trip was taking us longer. And by the way, most of my pals were awakened. This was when they joined me in my lame game of giving a big deal for a goat/deer/boar/dog on the road and started counting with me.

But the re-routing got tedious when it got more frequent. And some of us begun to be bothered by the thought that we’ll lag behind our schedule. We were about to go beyond out estimated time of arrival.

4 minutes late. Sir DJ took notice of this municipal hall which looked better than the region’s regional hall in San Fernando, Pampanga. Politics. Wrong priorities, indeed. Then the ratio of the elementary schools to the high schools was 3:1 as I [mental] noted. It made me wonder about the number of grade school graduates that pursue to secondary education. Sad, but I hope that the other institutions were just out of the way.

from left to right, Trizia, Me, Issa, Au, Taj, and Jett. <3

17 minutes late. My friends were going over Jett’s calling a goat a dog. I couldn’t actually join the rest with making fun of her because deep inside I thought that the animal was a dog as well. o.0 Moments later, I tallied my count of the busses. My then, I concluded that saw 14 busses—3 tourists, 8 mini busses named “PAPIN” in their front 2 aircon busses going to Cubao and one that was rather weird, I was not able to categorize it. The ‘Papin’ busses were (I think) the regular PUV in the area—ordinary and speeding. Very ordinary.

44 minutes behind the schedule. We just found our way to Baler! Everybody was up and our driver was already discussing educational stuff as he drive. Although I found myself laughing at myself upon hearing some of his lectures, I admire him for knowing things that I should know. Plus, he’s patient enough to give way to the other motorists for crossing two rivers with narrow bridges. Not to mention that he’s got good taste of music. We had a great time singing along with him.

87 minutes after out ETA. The roads we’re travelling on were concrete at the moment and unpaved later. Outside my window, I saw traces of mass wasting processes and the soil behind the retaining walls were rich in hematite, if not with limestone. More flood plains along the way and we were able to see a part of that 3% forest cover of the country. Nature in our faces. Moments later, we were greeted by interesting names of certain establishments: “Sio My Honey,” “Malamig Hotel,’ and “Benten Car wash” among others. It was when Sir DJ announced that we’ll be having breakfast by 9am. After 7 schools, 3 goats/dogs, 4 chickens, 3 boars, 14 busses, 2 cemeteries, 1 beautiful lake, 3 flood plains, 2 dams, 4 times of going the wrong way and 2 moments of silence [for me when the rest of the class was snoring], we have arrived.