PINOYAPACHE GOES AGAIN TO THE TWIN CITIES OF ZAMBO NORTE

I AM A PASSENGER OF M/V Georich tonight, May 30, 2011, travelling to the cities of Dipolog and Dapitan in Zamboanga del Norte. The boat is quite small by today's standards and, I think, it's my first time to ride this relic. I have an errand to make and I have to retrieve a package inside Dakak Beach Resort and then bring it back to Cebu.

Oh, the boat cabin is full and I have to make do with a cot on a higher level leaving me no space to place my bag. Besides that, the alleys are blocked with bags and personal cargoes; my feet protrude beyond the cot I'm sleeping on; and the fluorescent light is just a few feet away from my face.

Well, what do you know, M/V Georich is such a small passenger boat. I have to reposition myself and move away from the light. The bag I have to hang on the boat's ceiling with a carabiner. However, the cabin is cool for it is airconditioned. I sleep before the boat depart and wake up at 4:00 AM, the following day. The cabin crowd is silent and, probably, we're still far away. I continue sleeping.

At 7:00 AM, I step on the Port of Pulauan, Dapitan City; after retrieving my deposited blades from the ship's first mate. I need to go to Sicayab, Dipolog City, to secure transport papers for my package. It is a police camp located on a beach and I'm rather too early to transact business so I have to make a little exploration outside and look for something to fill my empty tummy somewhere along the highway.

I found one tended by one elderly woman and feasted on chicken curry, a dish of local pasta and two servings of rice. I just paid all these for 25 pesos. Cheap! Now, back to the seaside camp, I make my intentions clear and I am instructed by a policeman to pay the fees to a government bank in Dipolog City and then come back to the camp in the afternoon and present the receipt as proof of payment.

I have been here in Dipolog a couple of times: the first one in September 2005 and the last time in June 2009. I retrace the location of the restaurant where I eat breakfast with cousin Patrick and aunt Lourdes during my first trip and found it. It is located right across the public market and the food are cooked well. Besides that, a respectful sentry stand guard at the entrance giving you a bit of security.

After taking my lunch, I walk across the market and look for certain food ingredients which I plan to bring to Cebu. I need not look far for it is very common here. I am talking about the “tabon-tabon” (sp. Atuna racemosa) and the “biasong” (sp. Hystrix macroptera). These two when mixed with raw fish makes the latter taste heavenly. Trust my wife. She knows. I buy five pairs.

Just one more thing. I have to look for a cheap place to stay! Not far from the city center and not too close. I found one along Bonifacio Street and it's only 500 pesos; with toilet and bath, cable TV and with an airconditioner. It is of walking distance to the public market yet quite invisible from there. Perfect. I rest for an hour before I make ready to go back to Sicayab to continue my processing.

I am given the run around and told to come back in the morning. Oh, well, that's how bureaucracy works here in far-out places. I go back to Dipolog instead and take a tour of its urban landmarks like the city hall, the monuments and its Catholic church – the Holy Rosary Cathedral. I bring the camera and fired at will.

I return to my room when it becomes already too hot and decide to watch cable TV instead. The travel have strung me out and I sleep, only to find that it is already 7:00 PM when I wake up. Need to look for another out-of-the-way restaurant that might offer local delicacies. Sadly, almost all the shops and stores are already closed and I have to make do with a corner eatery but, still, it is cheap!

In the morning of June 2, I return to Sicayab full of optimism but I got out with opposite feelings. It had not been processed yet. Why not go to Dakak Beach Resort instead? The most difficult process might be the easiest, who knows? I rely so much on getting my way around the camp but found it a bastion of age-old habits that refused to change despite computerization. I have to improvise and race myself to Dapitan City.

I have bad memories of that pebbled road to Dakak. The motorcycle I rode on took a spill there in 2009 that left me with bloody arms and the driver in much worse condition. However, today, it is fully concreted but it is never cheap to travel there on a hired motorcycle. I don't care. As long as my package is with me and damn that transport papers.

After waiting almost an hour, I have now the package in my possession. I need to go back to my room in Dipolog fast and gather my things for departure. For the third time, I miss the chance to take a good tour of this city and take pictures of its most famous landmark – the Jose Rizal National Park. Someday, I will with wife and kids for a whole week. Book me!

I leave Dipolog City and pass by Sicayab just for the heck of it. Expecting the worst, it turn out better this time and I get hold of the transport papers. It is 2:00 PM and my expected departure for Cebu would be 7:00 PM. I decide to go early to Pulauan Port and wait for the departure time.

Good thing that I went early there for I discovered that the 7:00 PM schedule had been cancelled and another boat from a competitor would, instead, leave at 4:00 PM for Dumaguete before steaming on for Cebu. What good timing! I take the beeline to buy my ticket for, I discovered, the returning boat is a bigger one. Ah, good. That means it has much wider alleys and wider cots.

I am at a section near the stern and I found it so damn hot! The windows are wide and open but I can't feel no air or breeze coming in even when it is moving. I willed my eyes to sleep only to be awakened by a crew asking for my boat ticket. Damn! It is really hot and most of the passengers decide to loiter at the port and starboard sides gasping for cool air.

The nearest airconditioned place is the galley but it is full of shrieking people trying to outdo each other on a videoke machine. I while my time at the portside gunwale but I found it disturbing that candy wrappers thrown by passengers from the higher level of the boat find its way and dropping near me. I don't want to get caught by something wet and sticky and I immediately leave the open area. Maybe my cot is a little cooler now?

The hot iron tub arrive at the Port of Dumaguete at 11:00 PM and disgorged itself some of its passengers and cargoes. That left many cots vacant and I chose the middlemost for it is cooler. I slept for an hour, maybe, enjoying a slight change in temperature when another crew shook me awake and asked for my boat ticket. Not again? This boat is insanely designed and full of insane crews. Worse, I am made to vacate this commandeered bed space!

I waited for dawn, half-awake and sweating on the hot leatherette cot, listening to the built-in MP3 of my cellphone. I may have slept, after all, for I discovered the horizon harboring now a paler shade of darkness. A tell-tale sign of light, bluish and dark crimson, streaked out from a flat dark blob. I look at the starboard side and see a dark mass of land five leagues away. It is Cebu, alright, but, still quite far to the harbor.

Meantime, the heat have not dissipated despite dawn's caress. I wished this hot iron tub could travel faster so I could free myself from its dank stranglehold. I spend the rest of dawn outside of the sleeping cabin facing a slight headwind, which is consolation enough. Yonder is the familiar skyline of Dalaguete; the bright power plants of Naga; the seaward point pf land of Talisay City; the racing lights at the SRP; before the slow boat enter the Mactan Channel ready to flush me and the rest into the asphalt jungles of this queen city of the south.

Document done in Libre Office 3

MY MISADVENTURE IN DAPITAN

SOMETIME LAST MAY 30, 2009, I was tasked by my employer to deliver a special package to the PAGCOR satellite casino inside Dakak Beach Resort in Dapitan City, Zamboanga del Norte. That dawn, from my home, I walked to the waterfront area of Cebu to join a queue and purchase a fastcraft ferry ticket, round trip, for Dapitan and back. The Ocean Fast Ferry ticketing office will open at five; their craft will leave at six. I was way too early.

At 5:30 AM, the ticketing office opened. I paid my fare and they asked me another twenty pesos. Jeez, twenty pesos! All my money are in 500-peso bills and the guy behind the window have no change to spare. Well, I scoured all the stores found along the street outside the pier area to buy some item or food, yet, they have no change to spare too and the clock ticked closer to six!

I decided to sit inside an eatery and ordered breakfast hoping that this time I will get the change that I am praying for. Bad luck. None. But, at least, they tried their best to have my money cashed in from neighboring stores and after 10-15 minutes they returned empty handed and I was in a quandary now where to find that elusive twenty pesos and it is already 5:50 AM! At the last minute, the owner came and handed me my change, three pesos short. A crumpled old 20-peso bill is all I need to get on board that boat.

I settled myself inside the craft and, later, the engine coughed to life and we were ready to steam to Dapitan that day with brief stoppages at the ports of Tagbilaran and Dumaguete. I eyed my cell phone time – it's 6:15 AM. The boat left the Port of Cebu slightly delayed. Sunrise glowed in the horizon offering a sunny promise for the day.

Leaving the harbor, the skipper steered for Tagbilaran amidst slightly choppy sea in between Cabu and Bohol. To make a vacant time productive, I read a book titled The Master Backwoodsman. Two hours later, the craft touched side with the wharf and passengers for this route streamed out leaving just a few. I went out and stretched my legs and took pictures on the wharf. Then I hopped inside just in time for the journey to Dumaguete.

The boat arrived in Dumaguete at 10:45 AM. I did not care to go outside like I did at Tagbilaran and concentrated on the book instead. Crews were busy with the passengers and, as soon as everyone settled down, the craft proceeded to finish the final leg of its voyage to Dapitan. As the craft left Dumaguete, I saw the Cuernos de Negros Range beaming in the distance. Along its trail, I have fond memories of a younger and more agile me carrying a big backpack and camping alongside the cold lakes of Nailig and Yagumyum.

Big waves rocked the small ferry on the open sea and I smelled a lot of vomitted food all over the cabin. I abandoned the book and watched instead an in-house movie starred by Will Smith. I have not yet seen this film, but I liked the story and the message it imparted and I rated this with a big FIVE star! Later, the sea calmed and the engine went half-throttle as it entered Pulauan Bay. At almost 1:00 PM, the Ocean Fast Ferry craft berthed and I disembarked. I forego of lunch and I went on my way for Dapitan City first.

Along the way, an air of festivity permeated the air. Dapitanons and the whole of Zamboanga del Norte are celebrating the Hudyaka Zanorte Festival in their town for the whole week of May 29 to June 5. Banners and flaglets are all over the main highway and the streets and many visitors are coming over to watch the events lined up. Booths are located on sites where events are held. Smoke from roasted pork and fish caressed my sense of smell and taunted my appetite.

Lots of policemen patrolled the streets giving you that assurance of security. I understand, Her Excellency Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo is in town with her entourage and other VIPs to celebrate in Hudyaka Zanorte. Eat Bulaga, a national noontime game show, is in town also to regale the Dapitanons with their brand of games of fortune. Me, I got lost in translation and forgot to eat lunch as I haggle with the tricycle driver that ferried me from the port.

An hour later, I hopped on a motorcycle-for-hire for Dakak Beach Resort. The road going there is under construction and being widened. Long stretches of unfinished road is marked by loose gravel and pockmarked by depressions and it was very dusty. Sometimes the wake of a speeding vehicle hinder visibility to the motorcycle driver steering half-braking downhill. A slight miscalculation would send the driver and the motorcycle skidding over the rough and unpaved road.

It was a shaky journey going to Dakak and I feel glad that the driver was skillful enough to steer his two-wheeled vehicle safely and I reached there in one piece. Then I took my camera from my pocket and took self-portraits infront of the gates of Dakak for posterity before I went inside to the casino and delivered the package. I tarried for almost two hours talking with the people there and looking for the rest of my money which I placed inside the pocket where I also placed the camera.

I remembered on two occasions on two different places I removed the camera from the pocket where I also placed the money – Php1,500. I retraced my route back to the gate and didn't find the money. That money is meant for my expenses during my stay while waiting for the scheduled trip back to Cebu like lodging, transportation and meals. Good thing I bought a round trip ticket or it would be a great headache if I hadn't bought one.

I am left with only a hundred thirty pesos to cover three meals, transportation fares and my temporary shelter. How do you stretch Php130 for those expenses! I left Dakak without a clear mind. My worries clouded my mind to work out a solution as I hopped on a motorcycle-for-hire down to Dapitan knowing that 35 pesos would be scratched away from my cash on hand. As the motorcycle negotiated a bending turn down the hill a VIP convoy of four vehicles sped by opposite us churning up a dust storm that obliterated the road from our eyes and...bang!

Me and the driver kissed the rough pavement while the motorcycle careened over the side of the road. As I fell, I rolled over four times along the width of the road. A reflex action that is just second nature to me when confronted with a situation like this that left me with just a superficial injury on the forearm, an injury that's less worse than those of the driver. I helped the driver retrieve the motorcycle and went on our way after examining our wounds are far from life threatening.

Slapping the dust from my clothes and my bag as I stepped on the well-paved streets of Dapitan, I decided to while away my time in the afternoon by taking photos of the city's landmarks. As I brought out the camera from my bag, I noticed the LCD screen is broken, probably squeezed by a gravel during my rolling action. The camera is not mine. I just borrowed it. It seemed all things and events are going against me and that made me crazy, for a while. I liked to scream my frustrations away, but I rather not seeing all those armed cops loitering around.

Amidst all my sorrows, a bright idea flashed into my consciousness! The port terminal will be my home for the night and the half day following it as I wait for my boat at tomorrow noon. Yes, and I will have that dinner too. By the way, I'm much wiser now in terms of spending my transportation fares to and fro, a privilege that was absent when I first stepped in the province. I hopped on inside a parked minibus that would take me to Pulauan Port crossing which cost only a mere ten pesos and a motorcycle-for-hire ride for twenty pesos to the wharf.

I took an early dinner which cost me 44 pesos to bridge the gap of a missing lunch; paid eleven pesos for the terminal fee and now I'm left with just ten pesos in my pocket. Wow, what an adventure! Or, should I say, a misadventure!!!

I looked for a secure niche inside the passenger terminal and soundly slept my worries away and I awoke in time to see a glorious sunrise on Pulauan Bay. Boat after boat came and left in the morning and passengers packed the terminal full and left it like a cavity after every boat departure until my time came. It would be a long afternoon ride in the sea for me. I will be fasting today on my journey back to Cebu!

The fast ferry came an hour after noon. I waited on the wharf pavement along with other passengers waiting for the last of the arrivals to disembark in Pulauan port. Among those who arrived is the favorite son of Dapitan City – former congressman Romeo Jalosjos. He was with his retinue of aides and supporters. An extravagant-looking SUV came on hand to fetch him. I climbed the gangplank and sat and waited for the engines to hum. The craft left at 1:25 PM.

Crossing the rough open sea we reached Dumaguete at 3:30 PM and crossed the Bohol Strait into Tagbilaran and arrived there at 5:30 PM. It was already dusk when we crossed the Bohol Strait again for the port of Cebu and my little ship arrived at 7:45 just in time to get a strong signal for my cell phone and I received a text message from Dr. Abe Manlawe inviting me to a dinner at Charcoal Native Restaurant in Gorordo Avenue. A proposition that is favorable for my appetite and I know how to get there too.

Ciao...

Document done in OpenOffice 2.1 Writer