Mt Canlaon, Negros.
Barcelona Seaport, Escalante City, Negros.
securing the bus
Cruising down the road, Cebu. June 2016.
On the summer of the very long vacation at King Khalid University, I spent nearly one month in the Philippines. Of course, part of that time was in "food heaven city", Bacolod where I caught up with JRC. I convinced him to join me on a bus-ferry-bus ride to Cebu City where I would be catching my onward flight. Actually, the trip was not even to Cebu City, but instead to Mactan Island where the international airport and many luxury hotels were located - just offshore from Cebu City.
J had never been to Mactan, so he was keen to join and help explore. We set off in the early morning to catch a Ceres Bus (the premier bus line of Negros) from its new terminal north of town. The whole place was laid out beautifully and was nothing like the muddy terminal for points south in the center of town. J's good friend's father was even high up in the Ceres Bus company, so J was privy to a lot of "inside information" regarding Ceres - but note, not inside enough to ACTUALLY know when the bus was leaving. As per usual, we had to get there early and buy a ticket and hope we were there in time for the bus headed over to Cebu City.
We got on a new bus with free WiFi, movies, and comfy seats! We were on our way. The road north started as a highway and I was extremely impressed. It later petered out into a two-lane road with our driver playing endless games of chicken while overtaking slower vehicles in front of us. The views over the sugar cane fields and rice paddies to Mt Canlaon, one of Negros' active volcanoes, were stunning. We headed north, then slowly followed the curve of the island east toward Escalante and specifically the port of Barcelona. The names of those podunk Philippine cities always floored me. Barcelona port was almost nothing but a dock and a few houses nearby.
We had to pile off the bus and register our names on the ferry passenger manifest. Given the Philippines' track record for overcrowded ferries sinking and people going unaccounted for, I understood why they took it so seriously. While we queued to give our names, they loaded the bus onto the car ferry. We filed aboard and soon the ferry chugged into the very calm harbor and later onto the more turbulent Tañon Strait. A big storm was brewing over Negros and we were racing ahead of it. The sea was just starting to get rough as we pulled into Tabuelon, Cebu [see: ferries]. We all got off the boat and quickly boarded our waiting bus to avoid the oncoming storm. The bus headed straight across the hills of northern Cebu.
That new, straighter road was in the process of being carved across Cebu to connect Tabuelon with the other side of the island (where Cebu City is located). The work was only partially completed and the road still remained extremely winding making me wonder what the old one must have been like? The storm caught up with us and we were driving through the hills on a winding road, under construction, in driving rain. No worries - those bus drivers were used to those conditions (I kept telling myself). The storm passed just as the road broke through to the other side of the island, and the Cebu Strait was spread before us with the hills of Leyte off in the distance. The road followed the sea closely. J and I agreed that the ride was not only beautiful, but there also appeared to be a lot of towns worth exploring on that north end of Cebu. We started to enter the Cebu City metro area and I told J to ask the driver where to alight in order to get transport over to Mactan. We got off near a big shopping mall and had some anxious moments figuring out which bus to take to take over the Marcelo Fernan Bridge onto the island. We finally figured it out, and I was mightily glad J was along since I noticed even he was flummoxed at times while trying to get directions.
Once on Mactan, we took another smaller bus and followed our progress around the island with GPS and got off near our hotel. Just a short walk and we were there - it was already dusk and I was very nervous about arriving in the dark. We walked by the hotel once, in fact, until we finally realized that it was actually just a private apartment rented out to tourists. Since I had booked it on agoda. com, I was not expecting a "non-hotel". Finally, with the help of the guard and calling the owners, we were inside. It had taken all day and several types of transport, but we had made it from Bacolod to Mactan Island. Travel in the Philippines by land/sea is not for those pressed for time or lacking energy! [see: bus to Dumaguete].
We went out to dinner, had a few well-deserved beers, and went to bed early. Mactan Island was waiting for us to explore in the morning.
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