Siargao Stories: 2002, final chapter

Sunday.

Our last morning. We woke up refreshed and not at all hung over. We decided to go over to Cabuntog to arrange if we could ride with whoever was also leaving for the airport (that way we wouldn’t need to pay for the ride). And wouldn’t you know it, Useless R was once again… completely inept!

Us: Hi! We were wondering if we could hitch with the group that is leaving for the airport later?
R: Good idea. I don’t know who they are.

Augh!!!

We had breakfast at Cloud Nine… chilled out with Django and Joel… said goodbye to them and to Ana and Alex. I took Kaz to the other side of that stretch of beach and showed her my favorite hut… this bamboo bit on stilts overlooking the water… really peaceful there.

Next thing we knew we had time for one final swim outside Sarah Jane’s and then we needed to haul ass to the airport.

We took last photos with Sarah… went to Cabuntog in search of a (free) ride to the airport. But it was not to be. The Mayor’s van was off somewhere and we really would need to hire a habal for the 45 minute ride. But before we left we ran into a friend who had just arrived. Angelo is the most fabulous man… I met him last year on the island (Kaz knows him from Manila) and last year I had such a blast being a diva with him and his friend. We chitchatted for a while then Zeny reminded us that we had better get going if we wanted to catch the flight. Which was good advice since we hadn’t even bought the tickets yet!

The ride there was amazing. Kaz and I kept saying “Wow” and “Look at that!” that we hardly noticed that our butts were taking a major beating from the ride. We saw the island unfolding alongside us. I had never seen this side of the island before. All of it was beautiful.

So.

Airport time. If you can call an open-air tiny cement structure fronting a grassy field an airport. We’d been told that sometimes people have to chase carabaos off the runway before a plane can touch down.

We got our tickets --- wooohoo – and waited for our flight. And waited. And waited. The damn plane was delayed by 3 hours! When we realized how late it was going to arrive we did the math … we had to be in Cebu by 6pm to catch our flight to Manila. And if the plane arrived at 5pm we would never make our flight. There was a brief moment of pure panic – it was as if our bad luck with transportation was following us around. But the wonderful people of SEAir made a call to Cebu through their radio or something (we didn’t have mobile signal – not even Kaz) and had us moved to the 7pm flight. We would make it home to Manila after all. Woohoo!

The planes finally arrived and we watched as a horde of bodyboarders piled out of them carrying their board bags and backpacks. None of them were cute. Haha. Well there was this one guy we immediately called ‘Wolf Boy” because he had this awesome kind of afro going on. (We later found out from Ana that his name is Kelly Hunt and that he is some hot shit bodyboarder).

So on the plane we went… landing in Cebu an hour later… where we were whisked by airport staff through these secret hallways straight to the departure area. We lined up, checked in and settled down at Bo’s Coffee Shop to while away our last hour before heading back to Manila. Throughout the whole thing people still back in Siargao were texting us… telling us about the party they were going to have… making us feel so bad about having left a few days ahead of everyone else.

Apparently we spend too much time chilling out cos the next thing we knew we could here our names being called! Last call for boarding! So laughing hysterically and running at full tilt we managed to make on to the plane in record time. And literally when we got on they shut the doors! Hahahahahaha.

An hour later, the doors opened and we were greeted by Manila rain. Sigh. Talk about apt – to land in Manila after four days of paradise and be greeted by rain.

And that ladies and lads, concludes the longest travel story I’ve ever written.

(post script: The very next day Zeny called me to say that someone had TURNED IN THE DIGICAM! A fisherman found it and gave it back to the local DOT people. Gotta love that island.)