8/18/09

Weekend Getaway: Destination Manaoag and Baguio

At 30 minutes past three in the morning, I received a text from a friend with a message gising na (wake-up). I wasn’t sleeping the whole night, my usual sleeping habit is 1:30 in the morning and we have to leave Manila by four, so I refrain myself from sleeping because it’s going to be impossible for me to wake-up that early if I have to sleep. Instead I drowned my self from watching boring movies being played over at HBO.

At exactly four, my friend was already at the gate to pick me up - it was a chilling morning, I had no choice but to put my jacket on and headed downstairs. We need to pick another friend at Quezon Avenue, EDSA; it’s going to be a threesome trip to Baguio lol. It was originally planned to be a foursome road trip but out of the blue, the night before Sunday, one of our companion had to backed-out from the team in favor of watching his favorite boxing match scheduled on Sunday.

We left Manila at thirty two minutes past five exactly; we are not familiar with the place so we brought maps, a map of entire Baguio and the other one - map of Luzon Area. I serve as the navigator as it was always my task every time we have to travel outside of Manila. Uh and mind you, I think I am very promising that I swear we could stand a chance of winning the Amazing Race lolz.

First destination - Manaoag, traveling to Manaoag was fun, we took the Concepcion route instead of the usual Mabalacat, and so at 8:30 in the morning we found ourselves lighting candles inside the Manaoag church. After we offered prayers to the Lady of Manaoag, we scouted the area for anything worth buying. Lots of fruits were displayed outside the church. We bought a kilo of Atis, Mango and Santol. Parking was a serious problem in Manaoag it takes you an hour to find one.

The Manaoag adventure was done, so we unanimously agreed to climb Baguio, and we’re crazy about the shortcut so we took the Kennon Road. We have traveled so fast that in no time we’re in Baguio, well we have a crazy driver, and she’s a psychopath of the road lolz.
Mile Hi Baguio

We’re all starving upon entering Baguio that we actually forgot to pay attention on the Lion’s head lols, we decided to have our lunch at Camp John Hay, and we ended dining at one of the diners at Mile Hi Center. After the much needed break we went straight to the church (the Cathedral) to offer some prayers after that we headed to the market place at Session Road to buy pasalubong.

It was a wet weekend, it’s raining around Baguio at that time, and we’re exhausted from walking the steep terrain of Baguio (lawet dila). After buying the pasalubongs we set to leave Baguio, we are following the Kennon Road sign but were surprised after realizing that we are actually following a Victory Liner bus, and buses I think are not allowed in Kennon Road.

We stopped at the tunnel and asked the waiting commuters what road we were taking, and they unanimously said, Marcos Highway. Uh oh, we ended laughing and continued the travel as we passed the zigzagging road of Marcos Highway. Heavy rains started to fall; a long and tiring travel back to Manila.

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