Manila Trip - Part 5

Chris worked a compressed week, putting in his 40 hours in three days, so that we could take off for a few adventures in the latter half of the week. He arrived home at about 3 AM on Thursday morning and, like me, arose groggily at 5.30 AM. We dressed quickly, caught our car, and arrived at the airport for our 7:00 AM flight on Philippine Airlines (PAL) to Legaspi City.

Legaspi City (also spelled "Legazpi", though the S dominates locally) is on the Bicol peninsula, near the southern tip of Luzon, the largest of the more than 7,100 islands that make up the Philippines, and is home to Mayon, a well-known, active volcano highly regarded for its beauty due to its nearly perfectly symmetrical cone. I was excited about the prospect of visiting Mayon when I learned our destination (Chris kept many of his plans secret until the last minute.), especially since we'd just visited Taal several days before and because Mayon had just erupted a couple of months earlier.

Our tour guide, Edith Batalla, and our driver, Joe Joe met us at the airport. (A note about our driver's name: Reduplication is a common feature of Tagalog and other Melanesian languages and is often used to pluralize or to intensify words, so Joe Joe could be Joe Sr, Joe Jr, or Big Joe.) Edith took us on a complete tour of the towns and sights around Mayon and we completely circled the volcano. We visited Cagsawa (site of a town that Mayon buried in an 1814 eruption, only its bell tower survives), Naglagbong Geothermal Park and a ceramics factory in Tiwi, the Mayon Planetarium, and took in the view from a picnic shelter within the "permanent danger zone" on the slopes of Mayon. We also drove over numerous river beds that crews were clearing of ash and debris with which Mayon had filled them just weeks earlier. Edith delivered us to hour hotel at about 3 PM and provided us with some suggestions for dinner. Our accommodation for the evening was the Pepperland Motel, a large, Moorish-looking edifice the color of an egg yolk. We made our way to our room and lie down for a nap, but we ended up sleeping through the night and awoke at 6 AM.

Unfortunately, I didn't completely sleep through the night. Instead, it finally hit me; I got sick. I made several trips to the bathroom that night and produced something akin to a lumpy purée of motor oil and spinach. Like Mayon's, my own eruptions subsided quickly, though I felt queasy for much of the next day.

Having missed dinner (but being no worse off for it), we enjoyed a hearty breakfast and set out for the second part of our tour. We went to Ligñon Hill and visited a Phivolcs volcanic observatory station on its slopes and then took in the view from an events hall at its summit. Edith showed us Legaspi City's port area and Lion Hill, as well as the hillside Shrine of Our Lady of Guadalupe (further evidence of the colonial-era connection between the Philippines and Mexico). I took some good photos of local flora at the Shrine; I now know where all of our tropical house-plants originated! We wandered around Pacific Mall for a couple of hours before Edith and Joe Joe delivered us to the airport for our 3 PM return flight to Manila.

PAL flies between Manila and Legaspi City only three times per week, so in order to return the next day, our return flight was on Cebu Pacific Air. I had never heard of Cebu Pacific and was a bit anxious about the return flight, imagining the airline equivalent of steerage with naked children and poultry running amok. You can imagine how pleased I was to board a brand new Airbus 319 (just three months old)! Cebu Pacific seems to be the Philippines' equivalent of the United States' Southwest Airlines, a fun-oriented, low-cost carrier. Cebu Pacific cabin crew often engage the passengers in karaoke and name-that-tune contests, though we were not so privileged on the 45-minute flight back to Manila. The flight was comfortable, on-time, and quite enjoyable. I look forward to flying Cebu Pacific again!

While we were waiting for our flight, a man walked in followed by two other men who were hunched over under the weight of an enormous icon of the Virgin Mary. This icon eventually occupied a place of honor in the floor of the front row of the plane and burdened two other now-hunchbacked men upon her arrival in Manila, where she attracted a sizable crowd of admirers and was eventually met by a small parade of several cars and vans adorned with blue and white balloons.

Unfortunately, Mayon was shy and kept its summit covered by clouds during our entire stay in Legaspi City. Edith explained that Mayon and the clouds that often cover its peak have been anthropomorphized by myth into a young, beautiful heiress (Mayon) whose father insisted that she marry a man of his choosing rather than the good and handsome, yet poor boy that she truly loved (the clouds). To escape her father's wrath and marriage to someone whom she didn't love, she took her own life. Upon learning of the heiress' demise, her enamored did likewise. She became the volcano and he the clouds and now the two are said to be making love when the clouds come and cover Mayon's tip for days at a time, flaunting their affair for all to see. So, rather than shy, I should say that Mayon was quite flagrant during our stay. I'm sure that Mayon's recent eruption was a feminine tantrum and the clouds were just soothing Mayon's temper for a perceived wrong!

I was thrilled to have the opportunity to visit Mayon, but I can't say a whole lot about Legaspi City. If you live in Manila and are bored one weekend, it might be a fun over-night trip, but I can't say that I was impressed enough to spend a whole weekend there and I think that Chris would echo my sentiments. Mayon is definitely the highlight of the area, though I'd have to say that chocolate-covered pili nuts are a close second! The area is also known for its whale shark watching.

I can say that Edith proved herself thoroughly knowledgeable about her home province of Albay and region of Bicol. I commented that she must've been a life-long tour guide, but she countered that she'd changed careers just four years ago, having previously been a professor of American Literature at two universities in Manila and Legaspi City for more than twenty years! If you do find yourself in Legaspi City, look her up! :J