And we finally did it. That is, pull off an AWOL on one another. Flashback maybe 4 or 5 years ago, two of my friends (Frenz and Francis) and I went to Boracay during Christmas break,and we had a great time. Until we made a joke on Frenz, pissed him off, and next thing we knew, he was gone in the morning.
2007,Baguio. The three of us went up to Baguio for the Panagbenga festival. We took the bus at 10pm from Pampanga and got there around 2 in the morning. Walked around for any inn with rooms to spare, found none ( which isn't surprising considering it was the day of the festival and every nook and cranny of the city is packed).So we ended up passing the time in a fastfood joint, then in a dingy karaoke bar, until 5am when we went up to Minesview Park and was rewarded with a pink moon. By noon, I got tired of pausing in the street to nab a shot of every flower float there is.Frenz is a photography enthusiast. I wanted to check out the trade fair and buy some home made strawberry jams as we have to head home by 3pm but they would hear none of it. There seemed to be a whole lot of flower floats that turned up in the park that we haven't seen during the parade, and they headed there like a pair of ravenous bees. Tired and sleepy, I told Francis I'd split and that maybe we'll just meet later before heading home. By 3pm and I havent heard from them, I went home by myself.
2008, Zambales. Another spontaneous trip. Frenz and I met up with Francis around 12 midnight (spent the whole day with my sister whom I was visiting, the initial sole purpose of the trip to Manila) and decided we'd catch the 3am bus trip to Candelaria,Zambales. Destination - Potipot, a really small white sand island.We missed the Express Bus for Candelaria because of the not so express Ticketing clerk and had to get the trip for the nearby town, and rode another bus from there. The whole trip took around 6hrs and by then I was thirsty as a mule in the desert. Unfortunately, the town's just been hit by a storm and they have had no electricity for two weeks, so I had to settle for a room-temp soda. Ok, i can deal with that. But, boy! Was I hungry! We hadn't had breakfast and had no sense to bring food with us either.It was noon by then so before we headed to the island, we asked Aling Minda, from whom we arranged the boat ride for the island, where we could buy food for lunch. And she said "Ay naku! Sa Dawal pa!" And it felt like a blow in my chest. I thought "s#it! so we have to travel again to some nearby town in order to buy food?" The same thought occured to my friends and panic began to set in. With a voice pitch higher than normal we asked: "So where is this Dawal restaurant and how do we get there?" And the reply: " You see that gate along the road where you just came from? You wouldn't miss it". We were shocked and thought is she kidding us? We went there and sure enough,the restaurant was just a stone's throw away from us, but from the way she answered our question, it sounded like it was in the next town. I don't know what happened, we weren't lost in translation cos we were talking in Tagalog. Maybe Aling Minda just haven't had lunch yet,lol! Within minutes we were at the island, which turned out to be so small, you can go around the island in less than half an hour. But the beach is divine. The sand is creamy in color and the water is so salty it makes floating so much easier.
We sat down to lunch right after getting off the boat and was soon into snapping and posing for pictures about an hour later. Me and Frencel, that is. Francis chose to spend his first few hours dozing which we thought was unwise after travelling for a quarter of a day.We were swimming when we noticed Francis talking to some men on the island and not long after, we saw him being ferried off back to the main island. We were confused to say the least. We kept on theorizing whatever it is that we have done wrong but failed to come up with any plausible explanation.We decided not to go after him, we thought he's a grown up and there must be a valid explanation for what he did, and although we might not hear of it soon, maybe sometime in the future. Oh well, for all we know, he just suddenly developed a flair for the dramatic.As for me, after being away from the beach for more than a year, I happily splashed away.
*** Thanks again to my friend Frencel for the pics, as usual. :)
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