Friday, March 14,

It’s just after noon, and I am now in a little ocean-side town called Port Barton. I arrived by pumpboat not more than an hour ago. I checked into a room at a too-luxurious place, and now have stopped for some overdue food in the form of a chicken curry for lunch.

The rest of yesterday went on more or less in the vein in which it started. I kept writing off and on and reading my book. I feel very lucky to have picked up that book in Puerto. I had assumed (one among many, many incorrect assumptions) that there would be collections of used books at the various backpacker towns. So far, I have seen almost no books. The few I’ve seen have all been in German or French. In fact, most of the fellow tourists I’ve met have been German.

At one point in the afternoon, I saw the dog that had come with us all the way to the underground river. He had come trotting up the beach with some other foreigners, and then plopped down in the sand. I went out and pet him for a while.

On my way back to my balcony, I stopped to talk with my new neighbors. They were a young couple from San Francisco at the tail end of a year-and-a-half journey around the world. I got their names, but I don’t remember them now. They stood out from the crowd in that they were of the hip variety. He had dreadlocks and had that “look” about him. You just knew he found the best weed in every country he’s been to. His girlfriend was a very beautiful and sexy woman. I’m not sure of her background, but it could have been anything from East Indian to Hawaiian. She was slim and had long hair and beautiful eyes. She was also an affectionate girl, and the two of them were touching each other all the time. I envied them the closeness that they had.

The guy had recently been in a motorcycle accident. I didn’t get the details, but it took place two weeks earlier on Panay. He’d hurt himself fairly badly and was still moving awkwardly. The worst of the injuries seems to have been a deep and long gash on his arm. It hasn’t been healing that well, and he held his arm straight and stiff all the time. One of his legs was also covered in scabs and he held it stiff as well. I remember a time when meeting someone who had been traveling for a year and a half would have meant little to me. Now, though, I reacted somewhat like my German friends: with puzzlement. Marick, in particular, couldn’t imagine something like that. It sounds like he was ready to go home after a day or two. He misses his nice bed and the comforts of home. I also find it hard to imagine traveling for a year and a half now. I’m actually finding it hard to imagine four weeks. I’m definitely on one of the most beautiful places I’ve ever seen, and yet time almost hangs heavy on my hands. Perhaps my four years of working and other things have changed me permanently.

I went for a walk yesterday afternoon. The walk took me a short distance up the road leaving Sabang. I had cycled into Sabang on that road, and yet walking it made it almost completely new. I took many pictures of the cliffs, fields, and other things that I saw.

At one hut, a woman called out to me a question. “Where is your husband?” she asked. I didn’t bother to correct her, but said that I had no husband. “Why?” she asked. “You don’t like Filipinas?”

I tried to make a joke and said that I was too young to get married. This only led to more misunderstandings as she said, “You like YOUNG Filipinas.” I felt I should get out of there before they started lining up their daughters for me to choose from.

The day that I’d cycled into Sabang, I really didn’t have any sense of where I was and how far away the town was. So I passed a number of landmarks and stopped there to catch my breath, and I was under the impression that I could still have lots of distance to cycle in the hot sun yet. So those landmarks felt a bit oppressive to me. However, they turned out to be just at the edge of Sabang. It made me laugh to stroll to those same places so easily. They had an entirely different atmosphere now that I knew where I was.

The boys had gone back along the Monkey Trail because they wanted to swim at one of the deserted beaches we had passed. When I saw them later on, they had all gotten a lot more sun and even burned quite a bit. We had dinner together, and it was pleasant, though by then we were all pretty tired. I was quite eager to finish dinner and then go back to the cottage to pack for the morning and to read my book.

The boat situation in Sabang was a little bit of a mystery. Everyone talked about boats going to Port Barton and El Nido on certain days of the week, but there were actually two different sets of boats. So you never really knew which boats you were talking about. I ended up on the Sweet Rizza May 1 because I just happened to be walking past a place where they sold the tickets for the boat, and a woman was sitting there selling them. I find that in general, places here often don’t seem open. Or they really aren’t open. I end up going to the places that don’t necessarily seem the best, but just happen to have someone visible who makes it look they’re open and would welcome a customer. The woman’s name was Alma, and as she told anyone who would listen, she owned the Sweet Rizza May 1 and 2.

To Port Barton, it cost 800 pesos. To El Nido it cost 1,500 pesos. I was still hemming and hawing, but I bought a ticket to Port Barton. I figured I could cycle from there, or I could get the next boat to El Nido. The boys were also going to be on that boat. They were going to go all the way to El Nido. I was sad about that. I liked them quite a bit, and I had enjoyed their company. They had a lot of life and energy.

I was told to be on the docks at 7 a.m.. I knew I didn’t need to, but I set my watch alarm for around 6. Since I had already packed, that would give me lots of time to shower and get ready. The people at the hotel’s restaurant said they were open at six and would make me breakfast then. Of course, when I went there at 6:15, it was still closed and showed no signs of ever opening.

I had mixed feelings about leaving Sabang. I was very fond of the place, and was even more fond of my cottage. I didn’t want to leave it. However, there wasn’t anything in particular there that I wanted to do. And if I didn’t take the Friday boat, there might not be another one for two days. Besides, I thought it would be nice to be on the same boat as the boys.

The boat ended up being a lot smaller than I’d expected. I had seen pictures, but I guess those pictures were of the Sweet Rizza May 2. It wouldn’t be in service for a couple of months yet. This was the Sweet Rizza May 1, and it looked like it would be a tight fit for all the people and the luggage that was gathering on the pier. The previous night, Alma saw me and called me over to the ticketing office. The boat captain had learned about my “motorbike”, and wanted to discuss extra baggage charges. I explained – again – that it was a bicycle, not a motorbike. I told them it was no problem if they wanted to charge me a little something extra for the bicycle. We all agreed that I would give 100 pesos to the boat captain for “cigarette money.”

The boat was anchored about twenty feet from the pier, and they slowly carried the luggage over and stowed it in the hold. Then the passengers got on. Finally, my bicycle was carried on. They had a lot of trouble with it. I suspected they didn’t have a lot of experience carrying a bicycle.

The boys made sure that we all sat at the back. They said that if we sat at the front, we’d get wet. They were right about that, too. The couple at the front got soaked before they decided to move all the way to the back.

The boat ride was fun at first, but like all boat rides it quickly got monotonous. I used my binoculars to look at the shore, but other than that, there wasn’t much to do. The trip to Port Barton took two and a half hours with one stopover at a resort at an island to drop off some people and pick up others. These places are much more developed than I expected. The road may be a disaster, but they do have a lot of things for tourists here.

 

Tags: El Nido, Monkey Trail, Palawan Bike Trip, Port Barton