A Wanderer Comes Home
Flying Over The Handlebars
Get With The Program
Playing Chicken
It was a particularly humid summer evening and I distinctly remember the bothersome feeling of sweat running down my nape soaking my shirt collar, making it feel like damp tofu hanging around my neck. I was hiking then, exploring the goat infested forests of a mountain just north of Manila.
I was walking around carrying an excessively heavy bag filled with canned food and several liters of fetid drinking water, toxic stuff that I fetched from a stagnant pool somewhere along the trail. Heavily laden with all these things on my back, I was desperately trying to run away from ruthless four-legged-devil-goats that have somehow developed a taste for my shorts. Don’t get me wrong though, I have nothing against goats at all. In fact, I deeply appreciate the savory cheese, which comes from the milk that is sandpapered out of them, with the feldspar-like hands of the farmers who wring their teats on a daily basis.
Goats were in fact the least of my problems as I walked along the steamy trails leading up that dusty slope. It was from whom the throng of horned ruminants were running away from that had me sweating like an Eskimo in a Turkish bath house. Based solely on the terrorized manner by which the animals were running away from the man who was approaching from up the trail, made me feel that perhaps I should be doing the same thing. But being higher up in the evolutionary ladder than the goats, I followed my instincts and went with my gut, which promptly turned inside out by the way, causing all the blood in my face to rush down towards my legs and effectively turning them into lead.
The man who was walking towards me actually didn’t look anything as scary as you might suspect. He was even smaller in stature than I am and had the kindly face of someone with an ecclesiastical vocation. What scared me out my wits however was the large jungle knife strapped to his belt and the carbine rifle in his hands. Not to mention his three other associates who also had rifles and had gone hiding behind some bushes some distance away. I could imagine them hiding behind the trees taking aim at my head with their firearms, making small “kapow” sounds with their mouths while giggling excitedly like schoolchildren on a fieldtrip. What scared me even more was the fact that we were in the middle of nowhere, with nary a household within hearing distance of a rifle accidentally going off. But I quickly calmed down somewhat after he greeted me warmly with a kind “hello,” going on to introduce himself as a simple farmer heading home from a hard day of “putting things in the ground.” He also went on to explain that he would be worried sick if I went on walking in the direction I was headed. He seemed to be pretty sure that there were armed bandits prowling the area. He goes on and on about him feeling a lot better if I just turned back and returned to town. Actually, he didn’t have to convince me about any of the things he was warning me about. He had me at hello! So, I simply thanked the farmer for his pastoral wisdom and then walked down the mountain with another notch on my experience belt.
You’d think that the incident would be enough to prevent me from pursuing other adventures. But on the contrary, it only fueled my desire to walk the proverbial “road less traveled” with renewed enthusiasm. And indeed I have, even trading a lucrative city job for the miserable life of a wandering chronicler of all things both mundane and exciting, so long as it involves either a very long bus ride or an endless walk in the jungle.
In exchange for the safety of an urban existence, I’ve visited remote islands and have been invited to incredibly absurd mountain soirees. Often, in places so far from the beaten track that I’d be in dire need of a haircut by the time I manage to stumble out of the jungle with the requisite malarial stupor.
I’ve been on so many of these adventures that sometimes the details seem to meld into a foggy soup of giddy recollections and tall tales. So what I did was fashion a small notebook made of cowhide from an old leather bag and a ream of cheap paper. I cut the paper into small rectangles the size of a back pocket and then stitched everything together with a length of nylon thread. The result is a sturdy little leather-clad notebook straight out of the medieval age, like back in the time when people probably had better things to do than stitch together dainty little notebooks! But this particular notebook has since been very useful to me in keeping track of all the many stories I’ve collected from far and wide. Which is how I’ve managed to recall the story about the goats and the excessively concerned farmer.
Going back to the story, it was nearly midnight by the time I reached the nearest hamlet. The solemn clump of bamboo and thatch houses sat in the shadow of the sleeping mountain that I had just descended from. It was as unlikely a place as it can get to dig up any kind of assistance for such an eventuality. I guardedly walked up to the nearest dwelling and managed to summon enough gall to knock on its thin plywood door, which, mind you, happened to be marked by a haphazardly painted cross, with blood-red paint no less. The kind of nervously-rendered cross you see in horror movies that helpless townsfolk pray will be enough to ward off the odd werewolf, vampire, or perhaps even those detestable flying creatures that molests anyone caught alfresco after sundown. I describe these things with such bravado now that I am safely back home, but trust me it wasn’t such a pretty thought when I was outside that door praying that someone would let me in sooner than later, or at the very least hand me a wooden stake and an exceptionally large wreathe of garlic!
It took a while before a sleepy-looking man answered the door with his scraggly-haired wife standing just behind him, both looking equally heavy-eyed and unappreciative of my sudden intrusion. She was energetically scratching her head with her right hand, probably in dismay, or maybe she was just wondering why the big cross on their door failed to have any effect on me. As it turned out, they are two of the kindest human beings I have ever met anywhere. They even offered me their meager coffee and a can of sardines for dinner, which, I kindly refused knowing how hard it must be for them to purchase supplies being so far away from town. Their house was a two room affair, the bigger room was a combination living room, kitchen, and dining area with almost no furniture save for a carved wooden chair sitting near a closed window, a crumpled sheaf of newspapers draped over one of its well-worn armrests. The other room, built into one of the dingy corners of the house, served as the bedroom, stockroom, and everything else in between that put the paltry space to good use amid the rural household’s practical way of life.
I lay on the floor of the big room that night, staring up at the dirty cobwebs that clung to the ceiling, and the brilliant little stars that shone through in parts where the roof needed patching up. I began to see more of the house as I lay quietly in the darkness, my gathering night vision slowly opening up the intimate details of the lives of these kind people who welcomed me into their house without so much as a cursory greeting. A plastic bowl with a greasy spoon on a small makeshift table leaning against the wall, a pile of tattered rubber slippers by the doorway, and a small woven basket filled with clothes lay on the floor near my sleeping spot. It might have been all the possessions that they had, but they had the heart to welcome another person into their lives without the expectation of anything in return. It made me realize that if there were any rewards to be gained from traveling, it would be experiences like this that tops them all. To have been able to happen upon these kind people who are true kindred spirits in the human journey through life. I’ve turned up unannounced at their doorstep but have been welcomed as though they had long been expecting my arrival. Almost as though I was a prodigal member of their family who had just arrived weary from traveling distant roads, a wanderer son finally come home.
Twenty-four hours after I finished my last lap in a 24 hour race that I joined in Muntinlupa and I still can’t feel my legs. I enjoyed being able to race again after a long while, not having been able to join anything since my last adventure race in Camotes Island two years before. It was a tiring and painful return to racing to say the least, and it being my first time to race solo in a mountain bike competition, I have a solid excuse for flying over the handle bars countless times during the race. It was my first time to see an off-road bike course, let alone race in one, so from the very beginning I did have my reservations. As an added challenge, I was racing without a sponsor or teammates, right in the face of organized teams with bike mechanics in tow and large team tents belching spare parts and scientific sustenance. In stark comparison, I had one bike, a tadpole tent, a few cloud nine bars, and my girlfriend for support.
The race started with a familiarization lap around the course, it was still a hot and dry day and we inhaled the dust kicked up by the motocross riding marshal ahead of us. The first part of the course wasn’t much of a surprise following a rocky path out onto well-paved asphalt that dropped down around the periphery of a firing range and across a short bridge. From there the road shot up abruptly and we left the pavement for good as we turned right into a potholed construction road ripped apart by tractors and six-wheelers hauling earth. The motorcycle ahead of us continued to lead us through the rest of the course, up until we got to the trailhead of what seemed to be a goat path where the marshal declared the obvious that we would have to continue on our own from there. The terrain changed once we got on the trails, riding up and down undulating hills of loose dirt and exposed tables of slick rock, which I correctly imagined to bear the forebodings of disaster at the slightest hint of rain. Fun would not be the best way to describe the last part of the racecourse as it dipped into a creek twice, both with severe looking turns and inhospitable landings. The final hundred meters before the transition area provided the encore performance for the trail riding master class with a deceptively gentle slope climbing all the way to the finish line.
It rained hard later that day, complete with thunder and bright flashes of lightning on the horizon. The sudden downpour turned most of the trails on the racecourse into mush, it was so muddy that my bike would slide down steep sections with both front and rear brakes fully applied. All of a sudden it wasn’t just a race it was also a bike sliding event, a mountain bike gymnastics competition with riders sliding down the steep trails in all manner of bodily contortions, which mostly ended in inglorious crashes never before seen by man. To make matters worse, my headlight flickered to its untimely demise at around three in the morning at one of the more technical sections of the trail, causing much discomfort to the riders behind me as they watched my bike spin out of control throwing me wildly into the darkness like a sack of potatoes. I survived a few more of these episodes until both my brakes failed while going down a steep incline, scaring me out of my bike shorts enough to stop and make repairs.
Despite my best efforts though my brakes was just a shadow of its former self after the abuse I inflicted upon it, and so the crashes continued at almost every lap, due in large part to the fact that I could no longer feel my arms, my hands, and my head felt like it was about to fall off my shoulders at any moment. After a while, I got very good at flying over the handlebars of my bike. I could fall over without snagging the handlebars with my shoes and I could pick a spot where to land with minimum pain and breakage. All these stories of great difficulty and mechanical troubles would be a great build-up for an excuse why I didn’t place so well, but honestly the other riders ahead of me were just too strong and they wanted it a lot more than I did. I ended up at 13th place overall and 6th in my age group, just enough to have an excuse to misappropriate more money for parts and to spend more time on the saddle.
The oversized sign on the windshield of the bus careening towards me says “Limited Stops,” and no wonder because its driver doesn’t seem to have any plans of doing so. Or perhaps he’s simply forgotten where the brake pedal is as he hurtles his ten-ton behemoth at a hundred and twenty kilometers per hour, racing on the wrong side of the highway head-on towards me and my bike standing on the side of the road. I think this pretty much sums up my first experience riding in Cebu. On one hand, I’m giddy with excitement just looking at the sliver of perfectly paved asphalt snaking along the scenic coastline of Cebu Island, on the other hand I’m completely in awe of the driving style of the motorists zipping up and down the two-lane highway. Cars, motorcycles, flatbed trucks, ambulances, and buses filled with people race towards each other at breakneck speeds overtaking each other at dangerous blind corners and heavily populated sections of the road. Everybody here seem to be in such a hurry to get to wherever it is they’re going, ironically, so they can get back to the laid back lifestyle that is otherwise the norm off the road.
The first time I rode my bike here it felt like I was playing chicken with luck as I braved the highway from Cebu City to Bogo in the north. I have since figured out that no matter how fast the vehicles here are moving, or how reckless the drivers are, they always give cyclists a wide margin on the road. But still, it doesn’t fail to get my heart racing each time I face down a bus careening towards me, not knowing if the driver sees me on the road ahead or is he slumped on the steering wheel red faced drunk. I’ve gotten so nervous riding my bike that I’ve abandoned the notion of using an mp3 player while riding to stave off boredom so I can hear oncoming traffic better, I’ve also been using hand signals more often than usual, and I’ve learned not to put my head down for more than a second, not even in a strong headwind that is a staple when riding here in Cebu – all in the hopes of not ending up as a hood ornament for a bus loaded with poultry products, local produce, and screaming old women.
It’s a good thing the roads here are perfect for cycling, otherwise I’d have packed my bike and gone somewhere else on account of Cebu’s kamikaze drivers. Imagine well-paved asphalt with Cebu’s central spine of mountains on one side and the open sea on the other. There are places here, like in the municipality of Catmon for example at kilometer 47, where if you fall off the highway for some reason you’ll end up admiring the corals in the sea below. What’s even better, there are towns every ten kilometers or so on the road with at least a bakery, a drugstore, and an internet café if you’ll ever need one on a ride. The most amazing thing I noticed here while riding are the roadside ads of a popular hamburger chain, just a kilometer outside of Danao City in particular is a small sign that proudly tells motorists that they have another branch sixty kilometers away in a town called Bogo. There’s one right in the middle of Danao City, why on earth would anyone be interested in another one sixty kilometers away when they haven’t even traveled more than a kilometer from the last one? Perhaps it’s just a way of reassuring people that cheeseburgers, being the symbol of human civilization that it is, are still available as far as sixty kilometers onward, so it’s alright to push on, who knows?
On Sundays, the roadsides are clogged with barbecue stands roasting all sorts of God’s creation like there’s no tomorrow, making it hard sometimes to stay on the bike and keep myself from wandering into one of them for a quick bite. Sundays are also days reserved for long rides, and I’ve gotten used to the idea that the Sunday crowd of riders are usually out to maximize the weekend by riding hard and fast, hopped up on Tour de France videos from Youtube, astride newly polished bikes that have been in storage for the entire workweek. But not here, I’ve noticed that they ride in bigger groups here and they tend to ride slower, allowing more time to enjoy the view. I recently caught up with a group of riders however who seemed to be the exception, they were riding at a rather fast clip and they were actually a little crazy as well. I discovered too late that they were prone to sudden outbursts of energy, crossing over to the left-hand lane of the road where they would inexplicably start hammering in the path of oncoming traffic. These cyclists were obviously possessed, by what? I’m not sure, but they’ve definitely brought the game of playing chicken to a new and higher level.
A few months ago, while riding home from Lipa in Batangas, I met an old man wearing a faded “Marlboro Tour” jersey weaving through heavy traffic in the late afternoon rush hour of Calamba. I caught up with him after much reckless zigzagging between fuming jeepneys and hissing trucks, all inching their way across each other’s path in their vain attempt to get ahead. I pulled up alongside the old man’s bike with thighs burning and my chest just about ready to split apart as a result of the gargantuan effort it took to catch up. I said hello but the old man just gave me an appraising look of disdain, the same expression he would undoubtedly have when he gets a flat tire. I carried on with my furious pedaling and he cruised on effortlessly in silence, until he broke the mechanical reverie of our turning chains and sprockets. He asked me where I’ve been riding that day? I answered “I went to Lipa in Batangas,” proudly. He flicks an imaginary piece of dirt from his handle bar and nods his head approvingly, like a teacher who finally gets his student to figure out a simple lesson. “That’s good” he says, increasing the pace a little as the traffic opens up ahead of us. I struggle to keep pace, shifting to a heavier gear to compensate for his thin road tires, clicking the shifter lever as fluidly as I could trying to keep my changing gears from embarrassing me. My gears shift quietly, except that the old man knows it and glances over as if he already knew I was going to do it. With the hierarchy between the two of us concretely established, we got to talking about other things. I commented on the fact that he was riding with a steel frame and that I had a steel frame as well on my other bike. To which, he simply answered that the frame didn’t matter and that only the rider is what really counts. We delved into it a little more in between bursts of sprinting on his part and huffing and puffing on mine. He paced back down after a while and we continued our conversation. “Do you want to know a secret?” he asks, “Sure. Absolutely!” I shout back, my voice barely bridging the gap between his bike and mine amid the noise of traffic zipping past us. “The next time you find yourself in a race” he began, “keep in mind that none of the other riders will know the difference as long as they’re all behind you.” His words hung heavily in the air like a smog of truth as he looked across at me to see if I got the message. We rode on until we got to San Pedro where my route would leave the old national highway. “Where are you headed, anyway?” I ask him just before the corner I had to turn, “Pangasinan!” he shoots back, and with a wave of his hand he gets up from the saddle and quickly accelerates forward. From the distance I couldn’t tell what bike he was riding, only that the rider was the only one who really made a difference.
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