Experiencing Luzon, Visayas and Mindanao in 3 days! - PART 1

Last October, our friends from the IT department visited us in HR and invited us to join them in availing the promo fare of Cebu Pacific Air. We immediately booked our roundtrip flights to Cagayan de Oro. We were all excited as we countdown to January 17th.

January 17th – Saturday -- LUZON My boyfriend sweetly kissed me goodbye as I rode the cab going to NAIA Terminal 3. It was 0215H. There was heavy traffic ahead of us on EDSA as we approached the flyovers of Ortigas. Our cab driver asked us if we can just use C-5 instead as an alternate route. We all agreed. NAIA Terminal 3 was big and I should say world class. There were more counters and it was more organized as compared to the Domestic Airport. This was my first time to fly after three years. The security is stricter nowadays; we went to two scanners before going to our flight gates. We even had to remove our shoes and in my case, my sandals!

There were some shops open at that hour and we saw this ice cream parlor where their icecreams looked like poop.

I got excited with the conveyor. Hehehe. Parang HongKong lang!

We boarded our plane 25 minutes before our ETD. Ayos! Hindi na namin kailangan maglakad sa labas boarding the plane, may connector na sya. Parang international tuloy flight naming. Astig!

It has been raining in CDO for two weeks and the office of the President has announced it as a state of calamity. There were flashfloods and millions of pesos in damages. Still, we took our chances and flew to this place – for the white water rafting experience.

I was getting motion sickness when we approached CDO. The pilot attempted to land but since it was cloudy (zero visibility as I checked my window) and raining, we flew back up, above the clouds. Through the intercom, the pilot announced that we were not able to land because of the weather. He further informed us that we will fly for a few minutes over North of Mindanao and go back to re-attempt again to land.

It was like a roller coaster ride. I suddenly remembered my experience on Space Shuttle of Enchanted Kingdom. It took me 30 minutes to recover from that experience. I guessed we attempted to land more than three times that morning. Suddenly my insides cannot tolerate the ride anymore. I threw up. One. Two. Three times. I threw up everything that was inside my stomach. That was the first time I threw up because of motion sickness in years. I think the last time was when I boarded Maria de Leon Transit about six to eight years ago. Finally, the pilot announced that we will fly over Mactan, Cebu to refuel. He said that after refueling, we will re-attempt to land again in CDO. Quietly I wished that I could get out of that flying machine right away.

While in Mactan, we waited for announcement if we will still re-attempt to fly back to CDO or just fly back to Manila. Around past eight in the morning, Cebu Pacific Air brought the bad news. We will all fly back to Manila. The crew was kind enough to give us time to make decisions. Huddle up, team! I told my group that we should just stay in Cebu since we were there. I have never been to Cebu and I don’t want to fly back to Manila. Tito Jundee concurred and told us that he doesn’t want to spend his birthday in Manila (his birthday was on Jan 18). Echo then told us that it was Sinulog Festival that weekend. Woohoo!!! I decided to stay. I just needed to convince them. Hehehe. Our main concern that time was money. How much would it cost us to re-route our trip of CDO-Manila to Cebu-Manila? Time was more precious to me. And to have an opportunity to join Sinulog Festival was more important than any currency.

After taking a few pictures with the crew, we went inside Mactan Airport by taking their bus and looked for Cebu Pacific office to re-route our tickets. While we were getting our bags, a father and son told us that they will take the ferry to CDO that day. They were part of the group who left the plane.

While Echo and I waited for our turn to be given service, several foreigners were angry and agitated because of the service of Cebu Pacific. We told ourselves, “wag natin hayaang masira ang araw naten.” A whopping six thousand pesos was needed per person for us to re-route our tickets. When I asked if we will just take Tagbilaran-Manila, the lady at the counter told us that we will shell out three gran. We had no other choice but to take the ferry to CDO. Hopefully by Monday morning, the weather will be better.

We rented a van with an old man driving it. Our priority at that time was a place to stay. It was a festival so we must be ready for the worst case scenario – fully booked hotels. We specifically told Tatay that we would want to have brunch first and a reasonably priced hotel. After our delightful brunch A-One Tinula ug Sinugba near SM Cebu, Tatay took us downtown to Hotel de Mercedes.

The reception offered us two rooms at Php3,920. Those were the last two rooms available for that hotel. I immediately signed the papers and paid. Rooms 312 and 318. The boys (Lally, Jundee and Echo) took Room 318 while the girls (moi, Matet and Tetah) took the other room. It was an airconditioned room with cable and two beds. We just added additional beds per room.

After cleaning ourselves, we went out right away and walked going to Magellan’s Cross. There were soooo many people. It was exciting and amazing at the same time. Re-living history. Love it!

We also had the opportunity to see the image of Sto. Nino during the procession.

Then we went to SM Cebu to book our ferry ride. Traffic was horrible. I felt like I was in Manila. Sheez! The SM in Cebu looked like SM Fairview.

I checked SuperFerry and unfortunately they did not have trips to CDO on a Sunday night. Across their office, we booked our trip with TransAsia. Tourist class was fully booked already so we just took the Economy class at Php815 each. The lady at the counter told us that we can upgrade it when we go onboard on Sunday. Since it was still early and we were not in the mood to go with the traffic of Cebu, we decided to stay in SM and watched a movie – Love Me Again by Piolo Pascual and Angel Locsin. It was a love story but we found ourselves laughing inside the cinema courtesy of the reaction of the Cebuanos in the movie. Sobra silang kinikilig sa istorya. Tawa tuloy kami ng tawa!

We then went to plaza where Matet saw earlier a number of ihaw-ihaws. Sa plaza may mga tolda na nakatayo tapos may mga kainan sa ilalim. Ang mura ng pagkain nila. Yung Sinugba na manok, 45 pesos lang ang laki laki na. Tapos yung kanin nila, kakaiba. Nakabalot sya sa dahon ng niyog na korteng triangle. Meron sigurong halong mais yung kanin nila kasi iba ang itsura, di mo makita yung butil ng bigas eh. 10 pesos lang para sa tatlong tatsulok nay un. Ang sarap ng pagkain!!! Pati yung sawsawan? Ay naku, panalong panalo! Sarap ng kain ko. I’m giving it 10 stars out of 10.

After dining, we watched the cultural show being shown at the plaza. Ang galing galing nila. I forgot to which school they belong to.

Matet, Echo, Tetah and I decided to go back to our hotel rooms to rest. We haven’t slept yet since Friday afternoon. We were more than 24 hours awake already. I called up my boyfriend, took a shower then dozed off.

To check more pictures, please visit http://www.flickr.com/photos/sweetiekat