Philippines Trip January 2011 #17

We are safely back in Manila, hoping for a little more restful few days here before heading back home. Yesterday we left Tabuk very early (5 AM) with Eduardo, Christy, Doleng and Fred and Bel. We stopped for a MacDonald’s breakfast in Santiago about 8 and then on to Bagabag (our former SIL support base about 4 hours south of Tabuk) and then on to Banaue (the world famous rice terraces). Fred and Bel still have a small home in Sta Lucia, Bel’s parental home, just outside of Bagabag. We stopped there for refreshments and then headed up the mountain for the 2 hour drive to Banaue, about 4,000 ft up in the mountains. Our plan was to have lunch there and spend a couple of hours seeing the magnificent rice terraces. Lunch was great, but unfortunately the mountains were all shrouded in low lying clouds and it drizzled a good bit of the time which made it quite cool at that altitude. Soon Ginny began to shiver and we noticed that she was running a fever, so we headed back down to Bagabag. It wasn’t the spectacular day of sightseeing we had hoped for, but it was good to spend one last day with our Kalinga family and Fred and Bel. We had supper together at a brand new hotel that is just being built in Bagabag and then stayed there over night. It is quite near the highway going to Manila where we hoped to catch an early bus this morning (6:30). As it turned out, the right bus did not come along until 8:00, so we had a bit of a wait and then the long, slow 8 hour bus ride to Manila. Fortunately now the roads are good and the buses comparatively comfortable, but it was still good to finally get into Manila at 4 this afternoon. After the busy last week, we hope to take it a little easier now, hoping that Ginny gets over her fever again soon. The only thing we have on our schedule for tomorrow is lunch with our good friends Doctors Jaime and Ruth Morales. They ran a Catholic medical mission in Allaguia when we lived in Asibanglan and also helped us put on a medical mission in conjunction with the Kalinga NT dedication in 2004. It will be good to see them again. We are tired but thankful for all the experiences we enjoyed so far on this special journey back in time.