october sun

It was early morning of Sunday; we were off down south, tired with all the hassles of first semester academic requirements and equally tired after releasing five issues of the school paper. In tow were ourselves and eager spirits to finally take a breather from all of it before the second semester starts, my last semester in the undergrad and the last half of volume 63.

Oct. 23, 2006, Sunday

The plan was to meet at exactly 4:30 AM at the JAM Liner terminal at Kamuning and head straight to Batangas Pier where our ferry was waiting to take us to our island getaway. We were 16 in the trip composed of seven editors, four managers, four staffers and one ex-officio member due to his romantic affiliation with our managing editor.

The call time was too early for everyone that waking up early became questionable, so everybody slept over at Joana’s place (I wonder if they really slept) on the eve of our departure to avoid the hassles of waiting for everybody.

I was at Nueva Ecija last Saturday and was not able to pack my bags until late Saturday night, so I passed on the sleep over thing and planned not to sleep instead and wait for morning to break. Unfortunately, it was approximately 1:30 of Sunday morning, while I was watching ESPN when I succumbed to my forty winks. It was already 4:30 in the morning and everybody were already in the terminal when I woke up out of Mia’s text, asking me I where I am. Amazingly enough, I managed to take a quick bath, gear up and travel from my place in Novaliches to Kamuning for only forty minutes.

As soon as we arrived at Thaliana, Puerto Galera and settled down to our respective rooms, some of us immediately took a dip in Galera’s pristine water, while me and Chip took a walk at the boulders situated in the end corner of the beach. Lunch time has not arrived yet, but I could already see that everyone was already turning tan.

I am a regular visitor at Puerto Galera. I find the place, especially the place I always stay at, very tranquil. I go to Puerto every time I feel that I am tired from the hassles of the metropolis and every time I feel fucked up down on my ass by this oxymoronically tough life. In the longest time that I have been a regular visitor of Puerto Galera, I have yet to try riding the Banana boat because, often times, I go to Puerto alone. So when I got the chance to finally tag my friends along, I grabbed the chance to ride it, and boy was it fun! The boat tipped over twice, but I fell from the boat thrice. The boat tipped over because the speed boat operator drove us on a sharp curve. And I fell from the boat alone out of trying to tip the boat over. The plan backfired and I paid the price of humiliation. Hehe but it was so good.

We played Beach volley and my team won twice. Haha, talk about athleticism. I thought I already have none in my system since I have gone from being a 130 pounder to 160 pounder.

In the evening, everyone was shocked with the dinner Ate Annabel and his Italian husband prepared for us: 816 inch pan pizzas and 5 gigantic bowls of pasta. I bargained for a vacation and I got a total wrecked diet in return. Bedans have always been hard eaters. Bedans will eat anything delectable and Bedans eat a lot. But not that night, we were not successful in consuming everything and left two bowls of pasta left almost untouched. After dinner everybody did their own thing, while Jio, Chip, Tim and I played two-card poker until the wee hours of the morning. We were so accustomed to staying up late putting up together pieces or articles to for a darn school paper that we never cared if it was already one in the morning and we were still up trying to milk each other out.

At one in the morning, one hundred bucks disappears, and at three in the morning, arithmetic disappears.

Jio: Pare, 64 minus 12?
Chip: 52
Jio: eh 13 minus 1?

October 24, 2006, monday

The thing that I love with Puerto is that white sands and clear water will wake me up from my slumber.

After breakfast, we immediately hired a guide to take us up the tamaraw falls, which is a 30 minute hike from our place. I have not gone to Puerto for two years already and I have forgotten the trail and I have forgotten how steep it was. I am a free spirited person so I found no problem in traversing the trail of boulders. But not everyone is like me. Mia and Nice slipped down on their buttocks twice, while Tim got his slippers broken.

The water was too cool and the rush was too much. The last time I went there I promised myself that I will climb the top of the falls and that is what I did. My curiosity of finding out what is on top of the falls drove me to climb the big rocks leading to its peak and I was correct, it was better than what I expected it was. It was already lunch time when we got back from the falls and I planned to take everyone at Long Beach to snorkel after pigging out.

I am fond on having aquariums in our place. Before I ran out of time to take care of my fishes, have had a number of 50 galloon aquariums and had a lot of fishes ranging from Arowanas, Oscars, Malaysian fins and Hammerheads. Fishes take my stress away and it is quite amazing to see a three feet arowana scramble every time I feed it with live rats, not the house rat that we all are scared of. That is why I am so fond on swimming with fishes. The feeling was incomparable with anything in this filthy world.

So there we were, swimming in awe how schools of fish swim pass us and how they scramble on the pieces of bread that we feed them. It is a good thing that I know how to swim that I was able to dive a bit deeper to touch the corals myself and to try to touch the angel fishes. You think it is boring? Hell no! And oh yeah, I saw a Barracuda swim pass me on my way to the shore. First it was a snake, and then it was a barracuda. What’s next, a stingray? Way too cool!

The day ended with us shopping for pasalubong at the white beach, some 30 minutes from Talipanan. I had a henna tattoo of a Chinese character that means “orgasm” and a lot of them drool over the ladies donning two piece bikinis. No I did not drool with them, papatayin ako ng girlfriend ko.

October 25, 2006, tuesday

We did nothing on our last at Puerto other than taking a dip in the beach. We have burnt our skins so what is there to save. I have gone from fair skinned to chocobrown skinned so what is there to hesitate for?

We took off from Puerto at 3:30 in the afternoon and like what I have been doing everytime I head home to Manila, I promised to return. Maybe next time, Daisy will be with me already…