Back to Davao

Last Saturday, January 3, it was back to Davao via Cebu for me. I was supposed to take the PAL Express plane early that morning, but all seats on the flight was booked before I even left Davao. I was hoping someone would cancel so I could take over his/her seat.

While trying to book a seat online, I checked out other airlines with flights to and from Tacloban. And as luck would have it, I found that Cebu Pacific was offering a new route from Cebu-Tacloban. And their flights were scheduled in the afternoon. Not a morning person, I cancelled my PAL Express Cebu-Tacloban flight and booked a roundtrip ticket on Cebu Pacific.

And so there I was on a rainy Saturday afternoon, waiting for my 2:35 p.m. flight to Cebu. I couldn’t take a good picture of the Cebu Pacific plane. But it didn’t really matter as their line of aircraft for shorter routes were of the same make as the PAL Express plane shown below. Just imagine the Cebu Pacific colors on this one, and you have an idea.

 

The plane took off on time, and here you see a bird’s-eye view of Leyte taken from my window seat as the plane was ascending.

As we gained altitude, we soon realized that there would be a lot of turbulence judging from the clouds that covered most of Leyte and the sea between this island and Cebu. Fortunately, the flight was short — around 45 minutes or so — and the skies cleared up somewhat when we approached Mactan Island.

 

In fact, the sun was out when we landed in Mactan. Later that day, Storm Signal # 1 was raised over the eastern part of Leyte and Samar as well as parts of Southern Luzon. So it was a good thing I got this flight out, otherwise I might have been stranded in Leyte.

From Cebu, it was an uneventful flight to Davao four hours later. It was a long wait at the Mactan International Airport, though.

Refreshed

Our new Dean treated the college faculty to a rejuvenating overnight stay at Eden Nature Park, atop Davao’s mountains. But only the Humanities Department faculty (minus a teacher or two, who were also going on a field trip to Camiguin Island with their classes) were able to make it.

We left the campus on board the school bus at around 4 p.m. Friday, and after an hour and with a short stop at a convenience store for some last-minute purchases, we arrived at Eden Nature Park.

A short distance from the gate, and where you change rides (unless you bring your own car), is the entrance to the mountain resort. A few feet away from this “Welcome” tableau is a replica of a Bagobo family’s house. The Bagabo, an indigenous group in Mindanao, used to inhabit the area.

In transit

I went home for the holidays Friday, 21 December 2007.

But I was already on vacation mode a few days even before that, and so dawdling was the theme of the day I left Davao. I had put off packing until it was almost time to go. Instead, I chatted the hours away with Claire — talking about anything and everything. So it was no wonder that when I was finally looking for a cab, there was none in sight.

I stood by the curb, my big bag by my side, waiting for a cab to pass by. When I finally hailed an empty taxi passing by, the driver turned out to be not your typical Davao Formula 1 champion. Where other drivers would hurtle through the narrow highways of Davao, this one drove at a snail’s pace and followed every traffic sign and then some.