My intention was to meet Rhea, a friend from Taipei and accompany her to meet her family where they lived at Kanipaan Brgy, Cagcagan on the Camotes Islands so I checked into a sketchy downtown hotel called the Cebu Century hotel to meet Rhea. Her plane from Manila was late so I had a few beers in the 5th floor kareoke bar, managing to avoid the various hostesses hoping to get a free drink from me. Rhea turned up with her father and brother around midnight and we planned the next days travel arrangements, managing to get an hours sleep before a 3.30 am departure by taxi for an hours drive up north to the boat port.
We arrived safely after a hair raising, extemely scary taxi ride, the driver was clearly on ectasy the way he drove, 120 km in small congested roads dodging tricycles, dogs and random people! Needless to say we were all relieved when we pulled into the port without incident, even Rhea commenting that it was a fast ride. We got tickets for another roro (roll on, roll off) small ship and departed at 05:00 hrs for Poro, a port town on Camotes island.
We were met at the wharf by some family friends and we all piled onto the 2 110 cc motorbikes they had brought to transport us to the family home some 14 km away. The ride was a hoot with 3 people on my bike and 4 on the other. The scenery on the way was sensational, beautifully maintained houses lining the litter free road with friendly passerbys waving and shouting greetings to us. As we drew closer to the house, the greeting were more personal with everyone seeming to be expecting us, and calling out as we rode past.
We pulled into the house, which is located up a bumpy dirt track off the main road to a heartwarming welcome from Zandro's wife Evelyn and 4 children. The children were delightful, each one holding my hand in greeting and touching it to their foreheads as a sign of respect while excitedly saying hello in quite good english. After I was shown around I was shown to a lovely bedroom where I was to sleep. Clearly this was Zandros room and both he and Evelyn were happy to sleep on the concrete floor while I was a guest. In fact, the whole family slept on the floor, including Rhea, all huddled together in beautiful family harmony. The fact they had no mattress did not seem to matter but I was relieved I had a double bed with soft foam mattress as my bones do not like sleeping on a hard concrete floor.
The highlight of my stay was a pre arranged party where Rhea and myself had put in money to buy a live pig, several plastic barrels of coconut wine, 2 crates of 1 litre, Bar Na Bar bottles of local beer and a massive karoke machine that was delivered late afternoon. The poor pig was very unhappy about the prospect of being BBQ'd so I went for a walk with Rose, Zando's 12 year old daughter to see the rest of the village while the pig was being "prepared". We arrived back just as it was being stuffed with various vegetables and spices and sewn up using farm twine. Before long the "baboy" was rotating over an open fire of coconut husks, being turned continuously by a growing group of increasingly excited villagers, who had already started drinking the coconut wine.
The baboy took 5 hours to cook and it was an event to behold when the cooked animal was placed on the kitchen table and dismembered by several very experienced locals, all quite pissed by this time. The party had began long before this, the kareoke machine was blasting out old numbers like "New York, New York" at deafening volume and a large crowd of locals had gathered to watch, listen and particitate! The night grew very boisterous with everyone seemingly wanting to meet me and have their photo taken with me! I crept away about midnight to my room while Rhea managed to turn the kareoke machine off a couple of long hours later, it was right next to my window!!
The next morning was very quiet, apart from the roosters crowing, dogs barking and little kids playing as all the adults slept in. Zandro took me for a tour of the island on his motorbike, it was magical experience and we seemed to run into people from all over the island who had been at the party the night before.
I left early the 3rd day to catch a pump boat back to Cebu. Zandro took me on his motorbike and while riding along I was stung by a large bumble bee type thing which flew down my shirt. This was a bad thing as the pain was intense and I had trouble breathing. Zandro dropped me and left me to my misery, it took 5 hours before I could get to see a doctor and have some treatment! The pain diminished over the next 2 days but even now it is sensitive!
