The access road didn’t seem quite as steep going down as it did going up. Perhaps I had just been too tired at the end of the day when I arrived to handle it. It felt good to be on the move again and surprising people with my sudden and, apparently, outlandish appearance. Once at the intersection and on the main road, the jeepney and tricycle traffic started up again and the chorus of “Hey, Joe!” and laughter began once again.

I had been told that the Bulsan Volcano Natural Park was the highest point on the road and that it would be all downhill to the town of Irosin. This, of course, was not true at all and I faced a lengthy steep climb to start my day. The sweat started to flow and I was soon wet and stinky – as I always was during that hot month of May in my horrible “high-tech” clothing. I resolved once more to dump this clothing as soon as possible and get some more reasonable cotton clothing. I kicked myself (again) for being suckered into buying this high-tech gear. And I kicked myself harder (again) for packing up and shipping to Canada endless boxes of perfectly good cotton shorts and T-shirts. Now that I was in the Philippines, such shorts and T-shirts in my size were going to be hard to find. It appeared that there was no end to my capacity to make poor choices for this trip.

Luckily, I still had a tiny bit of capacity to make an occasional good choice, and one of them had been to take the quiet and beautiful coast road instead of the insanely busy national road. The national road would have been much flatter, much shorter, and much less difficult. However, it also would have been far less interesting, as evidenced by the incredibly beautiful area than I found myself cycling through along the Bulsan Volcano.

Once I finished the initial climb from the park’s access road, the road went downhill through a series of beautiful villages and provided gorgeous views of Bulsan Volcano’s green slopes and dramatic peak. There were rushing rivers, hot and cold springs, and expansive views on all sides. There was much activity of interest in the villages, too, including the efforts of one man to put four large pigs into the square carrier of a tricycle. It made me think of the scene in Charlotte’s Web when the troublemaking goose told Wilbur that he should struggle when the farmer tried to put him in the crate for the trip to the fair. Wilbur wanted to go to the fair, so he had no reason to struggle. The goose told him however, that that is what pigs did. If he went into the crate willingly, the farmer would think there was something wrong with him. Wilbur took that advice and struggled hard. The farmer finally forced Wilbur into the crate and was quite reassured about Wilbur. He said something about there being nothing wrong or unnatural about that pig.

I don’t know if the man with the tricycle found his pigs’ behavior to be reassuring. Somehow I doubt it. I think he would have preferred it if the pigs would stop their insane squealing and just get on with the job of being loaded. My sympathies were with the pigs. There hardly seemed room enough in that tricycle for two pigs let alone four. Getting all four in presented quite the puzzle and it was finally solved only with a great deal of whacking the pigs very hard and pulling viciously on the ropes on their snouts. Starting with a trip long ago to Vietnam, where pigs are stuffed into wicker baskets for transport, it seems that the monstrous sound of squealing pigs is the soundtrack of my travels.

Down and down and down the road went in graceful sweeps and arcs until I reached the interesting and friendly town of Irosin. Irosin marked the spot where my road rejoined the busy national road. I wasn’t looking forward to that, but for the moment I was enjoying the rural yet bustling nature of Irosin.

Irosin had a beautiful setting in the shadow of the Bulsan Volcano. In fact, there was a famous scenic lookout point just a short distance outside of Irosin called “Irosin Valley View.” I stopped there when I left and took lots of pictures. It clearly showed how blessed Irosin was in terms of its natural setting.

Irosin seemed to be the perfect size to me. It was large enough to have all the products and services that a reasonable human could want. But it was also small enough to be accessible and friendly. It did, unfortunately, have the confusing set of one-way streets in the middle, but they were less confusing than in most towns and I managed to find my way through them and then doubleback as I explored.

I was riding around Irosin so much becauses I was looking for Noel the Cyclist – a man on a souped-up mountain bike that I had met on the road when I left from Sorsogon. He told me that he was from Irosin. He had ridden his bike into Sorsogon to buy a new tire for his bike and was on his way back to Irosin when I met him. We parted company when I turned left to go down the coast road and he went straight.

Noel invited me to look him up when I got to Irosin. He said it was a small town and all I had to do was ask anyone for Noel the Cyclist. Everyone knew him. I found that Irosin was slightly bigger than that and the average person on the street did not know Noel the Cylist. However, I knew that Noel worked in local government, so I stopped at a public health office and asked after Noel there. Everyone there knew him, and I was directed to the attractive local government offices just two blocks away. A few inquiries there told me that Noel’s office was on the second floor. Unfortunately, he was not at his desk and no one knew where he was. I had to leave Irosin without actually seeing him.

From Irosin, the road climbed very steeply to the Irosin Valley Viewpoint and for quite a ways beyond that. Luckily, it was early in the day and the road was smoothly paved, so I kept pedalling all the way to the top. I knew a great deal more about where I was and where I was going because a very kind staff member at the Bulusan Volcano Natural Park had given me his personal copy of the EZ Map for Sorsogon Province. The company EZ Map makes maps for many big and small regions of the Philippines. If I’d know in advance that I was going to go to Catanduanes, I would have picked up the EZ Map of that island. It would have made my journey there much more pleasant and informed. A good map of the Bicol Region also would have been very helpful. It was too bad that I didn’t get this map of the Sorsogon province until I was just about to leave it. However, it came in very handy in the short time that I used it. It even helped me anticipate the difficult climbs I faced. The maps do not show topography, but when the line showing the road suddenly turns into a squiggle with tight turns, it is a good bet there are some steep climbs there, and that turned out to be true.

I don’t know where I got the idea from, but I was under the impression that the peninsular area around the town of Matnog – the end of Luzon and the jumping off point for ferries to the Visayas – was unattractive and somewhat barren. Nothing, happily, could have been further from the truth and the landscape continued just as lush and beautiful as the area around Irosin. It was a pure joy to cycle there. Even the national road was not nearly as busy as the section between Legazpi and Sorsogon, so I could relax and really enjoy myself.

Tags: bike, Bulsan Volcano, Bulsan Volcano Natural Park, Irosin Valley View, Irosin Valley Viewpoint, Legazpi to Matnog, Philippines Bike Trip 2013