Returning to Antique, onward to Cebu

Before really setting out on our big travelling adventure, we returned one last time to San Jose, Antique - Lora's old PC site. San Jose is the capital of Antique and about 2.5 hours west of Iloilo City, where we had been working. We kept Lora's nipa hut during our 2 month job because Lora couldn't part with it yet and we thought it would be nice to get away from the big city life every once in a while. We spent one week in San Jose packing, studying for the GRE and saying goodbye. Actually there wasn't much packing to be done, Lora only had to go through her boxes and tins and strategically place the items into disheveled mounds which would be picked through by her neighbors after she left. KC was amazing, as usual and didn't complain, not even once! even though this was his second stint in the "I'm leaving forever" PC phase. After lots of packing and visiting with friends, some videoke and crying, we set off on the overnight boat to Cebu.

After so much reminiscing, we decided to post the album of "KC's highlights in the Philippines with Lora in the background."

Our purpose in Cebu was to take the GRE test because we both feel that in the near future (hopefully within the next 5 years, since that's how long the GRE is good for), we would like to return to school to get our master's degree. Since we had so much time on our hands during our teaching job, we had plenty of time to study. As the date neared, our heads filled with visions of a GRE gone awry with nightmares of brownouts and sticky keys but, the test was surprisingly uneventful and we both came away with scores higher than expected.

In Cebu, we found the cheapest meals in the world! At a little "turo-turo" (point-point) near our pension both KC and Lora managed to eat for 25 pisos total!! For those of you not accustomed to the conversion rate that is $0.50 for 2 people! The best thing about the meals were that they were completely vegetarian, something that is practically unheard of in restaurants.

The original plan was to head to Cebu the day before the test, take the test then leave on the overnight boat to Mindanao. This plan would have worked, if it were not for the phone call from the Post Service Unit at PC Lora received a few days before leaving SJ who informed her that there were some medical issues that needed to be resolved and PC will only pay for it for the next 3 months or she's outta luck. You gotta love bureaucracy when it takes 3 months to tell you that the cup you peed in shows signs that you MAY be sick, but you'll need further testing for confirmation. So, we spent an extra night and loads of extra money before really setting out on our grand adventure.

The Adventure Begins!...Almost

We just finished our last week in Iloilo and tomorrow we will be heading back to Antique. During our last few days we decided to hit up the Museo Iloilo, a minuscule building near the provincial capital. Lora thought it was especially hilarious and took some pictures.

We also ran around taking pictures of the different street vendors. Some vendors hang out on the sidewalk all day waiting for customers. These are generally the fruit or knick knack vendors. I love them because when a pang of hunger strikes while I'm running errands its never far to the nearest fruit vendor. Green (unripe) mangoes in soy sauce are delicious! At about 4pm, swarms of snack vendors flood the sidewalks eager to take the pisos from grimy little hands. These vendors usually sell some type of deep fried food. For about the past year, fried fish balls have been extremely popular (I think the idea came down from Manila). A classic snack is a bag of deep fried peanuts which come in four varieties: spicy, garlic, sweet and salty. These are a favorite of KC, who sometimes fries his own peanuts in a wide range of spices (curried peanuts are surprisingly good!).

Tomorrow we head back to Lora's old site to clean up, study for the GRE and say goodbyes before we head on our big SEA Adventure!

If you'd like some information on tourism in Indonesia check out this website. I don't think its the official Indonesia tourism website, but its the most fun! To see why, make sure you read the fine print at the bottom of the page. We just found out that we will be there during the great feast that ends Ramadan, so I'm sure we'll have stories about that in October.

The Last Rainforest

During our two day vacation from teaching English, we decided to go visit Kevin, a Peace Corps volunteer assigned in Northwest Panay Pennisula. We have visited before but never had a chance to hike around the area, which contains some of the last rainforest remaining on the island of Panay. So with our minds set on some exploration and exercise we headed of from our city life into the wilds of the jungle.

We arrived at Kevin's, in the town of Pandan, in the late afternoon and started out on a leisurely 15 mile bike ride to the next town of Libertad, where we would hike the next day. The bike ride was the best I have been on in the Philippines. It took us through vibrant green rice fields and along a gorgeous coastline bounded by the nearby mountains. We arrived in Libertad before dark and decided to head into town for some dinner and videoke. Our guide, an employee of the municipal hall who Kevin had previously met, took us to the only place that was open where we were greeted by an eccentric host from Manila who welcomed us to his "sanctuary." I do not know how sanctuarious it was but we filled our faces and belted out a few songs before hitting the hay.

We awoke in the morning and headed for the barangay of Inyawan where Kevin had arranged a guide. After a few wrong turns and a bit of confusion about where we were going we arrived in Inyawan to find that they did not know we were coming and did not know about any arranged guide. But within 10 minutes, three teenage boys were rounded up and they were more than willing to lead us on a trek to the Inyawan Falls. So once we were ready, our eager guides dashed off through the creeks and rice fields with the three of us in tow.

We scurried through the forest along the river (because upland Pinoys can scurry like the devil over slippery rocks and makeshift bamboo bridges) for about two hours until we came to the first falls. As I expected it was like many waterfalls that I have seen here in the Philippines: very pretty but nothing to raise your eyebrows at. It was alright though, since the main reason I came here was for a chance to get some fresh air in the woods. Our guides told us that the trail kept on going and there were more falls ahead. So we moved on and sure enough about thirty minutes later there was another set of falls (another dinky 10 foot one). But then to our surprise not much further was the most impressive waterfall that I seen in the 'Pines. It was over 100 feet tall; just a gorgeous torential stream off water dropping off a cliff of green. It was a projectile waterfall as it shot out some 10 feet away from the cliff. It was awesome to say the least.

Along the way we were able to see some decent forest and some really big trees which made us happy. Not much wildlife other than a few millipedes and freshwater shrimp that the boys were continually looking for while guiding us. We also saw some large tracts of forest that had recently been cut and burn. Unfortunately, this last area of rainforest is feeling the effect of the surrounding population of slash and burn farmers and palm plantations. It always makes me sad to see what is happening here to the dwindling natural resources. But the view of these falls, the clear streams and the outlooks from the top of the mountains made us all very content and lucky to be there.

After our longer than expected hike we jumped on our bikes and headed back to Pandan. It got dark before we arrived and we rode the last ten kilometers by headlamp. By the time we reached the restaurant for dinner, exhaustion had set in and tensions were high. This was cured by a large meal however and we were all satisfied with a great day in the forest.