As in my previous post, I recently came back from a trip to the Cordilleras. Despite being a beach person, I couldn't help but love the crisp, chilly mountain air and amazing scenery. Definitely a trip that I'll always remember.Our trip started quite badly. What was suppose to be a 9-hour-night-drive-wake-up-in-Banaue turned to be a 14-hour-bus-breakdown nightmare. I should've seen it coming with our bus cruising at barely 40kph on the North Expressway. The engine finally decided to conk out at around 2 in the morning in front of a funeral home. It felt surreal, in a bad sort of way. Like one of those horror B-movies where a bus ride takes a turn for the worst and the next thing you know everyone's being chased by zombies.
Anyway, it took more than an hour for the drivers to figure out what the bruhaha was (clogged gas filter, I think). Then we happily on our way. Or so we thought. Cause then wonder of wonders, our bus broke down again. This time we owed it to a flat tire. Worse, at 5 in the morning, no one in the neighborhood wanted to drag their sleepy asses out of their beds to service us. Call that unlucky? Don't just quite yet cause the bus-breakdown saga continues.
After much pakiusap (a gentler term for begging) and a ridiculously long time of waiting, the drivers were able to find a someone good enough to fix the tire then we were off again to Banaue. But as a folklore goes, bad luck comes in threes. So it was no wonder that after this, we had yet another bus problem. As we started our ascent to the Mountain Province, our bus was again whizzing (from the thinning air perhaps?) and eventually came to a stop.
The bus had overheated. Why weren't we surprised?
By this time, it was already mid-morning and according to the bus drivers, we had lost 5 hours due to all the bus trouble. Some passengers were understandly pissed but most of us were simply resigned.
If anything, this was a sign that our vacation was bound to be interesting. Afterall, the journey is part of the travel.
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