Philippine Adventure: Part Two

Day 4: Monday, June 22

Waking up to clear skies and a cool breeze really lifted my spirits. The heat gets so oppressive during the afternoon and finally breaks into pouring rain. The rain cleanses everything and lets the new day start out fresh, then the heat begins to build as the sun comes up over the horizon and the process repeats. The day starts early, about 5:00 AM when the sun comes up. It ends early, too. We were in bed by 9:00 most nights, often earlier. Partly because there's not really much going on after the sun goes down at 7:00 PM, but mostly because we were exhausted after waking up early and being on the go all day.

Barbara, Stephanie, Kylie and I walked into the market Monday morning. It's just a block away from the library.

Who knew there were so many kids of rice? And this is just a small stall. There were others with a much bigger selection.

I was a little suspicious of buying meat here. Flies everywhere...

You can buy any part of the animal.

I love the bananas. They're smaller and sweeter than ours, but not mushy.

The fried bananas are delicious as well. They are dipped in a sweet batter and fried in oil. We got them hot out of the frier. Yum!

Stinky dried fish, not so yum! It's hard to see, but they're whole, heads, tails, scales and all, and people eat the whole thing. Not me, though.

Most people were very friendly. We stopped to talk to this family; the woman on the left is grandma to the three kids. I think her son is behind. Everyone stared at us, but if we smiled and waved, they would smile back. It felt very odd to be the only white people walking around.

Noodles! These were yummy, too. Pancit Canton, I believe.

Jeepneys waiting for their routes to begin. Each one has their route painted on the side so you know which one to take, but it was still very confusing to me!

When we returned from the market, we met Carlyn's neighbors, one of her sets of godparents. (She has 18 all together!) Their son, Paxon, climbed a coconut tree for us and harvested several young coconuts. Kylie thought it looked pretty easy, especially since there are foothold cut into the trunk, so she gave it a try. She made it about four feet, and gave up. She determined she would walk barefoot the rest of the trip to toughen up her feet so she could try again before we went home. I vetoed that idea!

These roosters are Carlyn's neighbor's. I thought it was interesting how they each have their own roost...maybe that's why they're called roosters...

Later in the afternoon, when it was HOT, we went to a mountain-spring-fed swimming pool.(Owned by Carlyn's cousin, of course. She's related to everyone!) We rode up the mountain in a multi-cab, just like a jeepney, but hired for specific trips instead of on an established route.

The cool water was so refreshing.

Monday evening we went to a "Miss Gay" pagent. No pictures, sorry! It certainly was eye-opening. I swear if I didn't know they were men, I would never question that they were women. I don't know how they make themselves look so feminine, and I don't want to know! After about 1/2 an hour, we'd had enough, so we headed back to the library. We had to wake up early to drive down to Cagayan and catch a ferry to Camiguin Island. Stay tuned for Part Three...Camiguin and White Islands.