26 March 2016

Christmas on the Road


One painful truth is – me missing those usual weekend getaways for a considerable amount of time now. That weekend class I had to attend, plus other responsibilities always piling up were the primary culprits for this extensive outdoor abstinence. But such terms as priority and time-management were also invented..       ..which brings me btw to this very unlikely but nearly perfect choice of spending the christmas season away from home to compensate for the lack of that right time I have been insofar, waiting for for a really long time now. 

December 24, 2015, was the date, just a few days after a hell of a sem.  From the restful foot of Mt. Makiling where I’ve been thriving for a good eight years now, I opted to go a little southward and explore the other far end of the island of Luzon rather than directing northward and spend the holidays abode, like I’ve been used to doing for the last seven years. 

As liberating as this may sound, the challenge is very much real from finding a seat off a bus (read: christmas) to enduring the ride itself with an inconsiderate seatmate on a nonstop smoking session throughout the ride. Then there was that almost tragic crash against a trailer truck somewhere on Quezon’s forested roads. Nevertheless, the entire bus ride wasn’t bad that much, sumtotalwise.

I remember waking up at nearly twelve midnight after a deep nap, been greeted by my other stranger seatmate a merry christmas; and then falling asleep again before waking just in time to have a glimpse of Mt. Mayon in orange outlines before finally taking that long rural stretch to my first stop--