Our Favorite Bus Ride
Trip Start
Feb 05, 2007
1
27
52
Trip End
Apr 03, 2008
Sagada, Philippines
Friday, June 1, 2007
Reaching Sagada would require taking 2 buses, 1 from Manila to a town 6 hours away, then transfer on to another bus for another 6 hour ride to Sagada. It was the 2nd bus ride that left the lasting impression.
It was 4:30 AM. My cousins and I decided to spend the entire night drinking instead of sleeping and waking up early (obviously, a mistake). We would just sleep on the bus, we thought. The bus was scheduled to leave at 5 AM . . . we departed town at 6:15 AM.
The bus driver had an assistant. He stood by the door, to control the amount of people that board and exit the bus. This normally wouldn't be worth mentioning, except for the fact that the bus door remained open while the bus was moving (in fact the door never closed for the entire 6 hour ride).
10 minutes into the bus ride, I hear a rooster, cockadoodledoo, cockadoodledoo. Ok, that's normal, we must be near a small farm, and the rooster is crowing as the sun is rising. Cockadoodledoo! That sounds really loud, that rooster must be a large one. Nope, that rooster was not large at all. How do I know this you ask? Well, I saw the rooster, in the bus.
About 30 minutes into the ride, we make our first stop. As the bus was ready to depart again, a speeding car passed the bus, and parked directly in front of the bus, causing the bus to halt. My cousins and I looked at each other, puzzled. Why is this car blocking our way?
A man jumps out of the car. He is holding an envelope, flailing it around as if he won the lottery. He runs towards the door of the bus, which remember, is wide open. He jumps right into the bus and heads for a woman who is sleeping, with her jacket over her head. He shakes the woman on her shoulder and wakes her up. The man hands over the envelope to her, and leaves the bus, acting as if no one else was inconvenienced by turning this bus into a mobile post office.
The road is rough and rugged through the majority of the 6 hour ride. The bus shook so much that the words in my book could not keep still. Trying to sleep was also impossible, as wide turns caused one to swing side to side. If you looked out the window and directly below, you would become queasy, as the bus was less than a foot away from the edge . . . an edge with no rail, and more than a 1,000 foot drop.
The bus driver stops again and jumps out of the bus. What is he doing? Where did he go? He didn't announce to anyone that we were allowed or not allowed to leave the bus. So, we sat there. 10 minutes later, he comes back with a bag of crackers and orange soda, started the bus and we leave. Great, he gets to buy a snack at his own leisure, and we don't?
We made one more stop. This time, he stopped in front of a blue shack. We were all dead tired, so it took us about a minute to notice what this shack was. Flies buzzed everywhere, and since the door was wide open, they buzzed around me. After swatting flies away, we noticed a table . . . a table with a cow's head on it, just the head. And next to the cow's head, were 3 hooves. To the left of the cow's head, seemed to be the skin of the cow, blood directly below it, but perfectly sliced and hung as if it were a towel on a hook.
Why are we stopping here? Why do I have to stare at this cow head for the next 5 minutes? The bus driver stepped out of the bus and spoke to a man who stood next to the cow . . . excuse me, cow head. The bus driver then handed over some money to the man. The man walked over to the cow skin, and pulled out a large machete knife. He took a swift swing at the cow skin, cut a large portion of it, stuffed it in a plastic bag, and gave it to the bus driver.
Yes, the bus driver stopped to buy some real, freshly sliced, cow skin. And yes, this was now extra baggage on our bus. Oh, I forgot to mention that I was sitting one row away from the bus driver, and his additional baggage.
Ok, this was certainly the most rugged bus ride I've been on. But, it also had to be my most memorable, and of course my favorite.
