After a quick few days of rest we took 1 long trip to Baguio, Vigan, and Pagudpud. Baguio is in the central part of Luzon up in the Mountains. It's about 5-6 hours north of Manila. Manny Pacquiao was up there training for the Mosley fight because it's nice weather and high altitude. I offered to be his sparring partner but he said I was too handsome and he didn't want to make me ugly. That was nice of him. Baguio reminded me of New Hampshire for all you East Coasters or Big Bear for you Westsiders.
Mason has some fresh Strawberry Icecream
We went to Bagio with Anna's Mom's part of the family...the Gervasio's. In all it was 15. We shared a 5 bedroom condo and eat/drank a lot. The highlights of Bagio were the strawberry fields, the horse rides, the active mine that we visited and the zip lines.
Mason had fun picking strawberries from the fields but he is like his mother. Why pick strawberries when you can eat strawberry ice cream. He ate the whole thing and then cried for more. He really enjoyed the horse rides with mom and dad but not as much as his cousin Enzo who cried all the way back to the house wanting more horse rides.
 |
| check out the "shootem up" hand gesture from the little cowboy! |
I assumed the mine I found in Lonely Planet Philippines would be like something you would find at EPCOT or Disney. It turned out to be a real mine. On google maps it seemed to be right down the hill but the steep mountain decline and the road switch-backs were not shown or anticipated. It was a scary 40 minute drive in a family van with 15 people in it. Our driver Roy kept signing the cross and praying to himself the whole way down. When you're on the fence about whether this was a good idea or not, that doesn't really build confidence. The roads were poor and everyone was quietly thinking to themselves how bad it would suck to break down as the van was not suited for the intermittent off road conditions. When we discovered it was a real mine that only made us more uneasy. All of this was my idea. I questioned our ability to make it back out with the car and now I had 15 distant family members and my own at a real mine where we were instructed to suit up with hard hats and boots, load into 2 rail cars and descend deep into a dark and poorly lit mine for a tour where they would blow up dynamite. Obviously I felt a little uneasy. But before we could change our minds they had us loaded into the cars and on our way into the mine.
Anna was the first to try the drill. This is what they use to drill holes in order to insert the dynamite. A couple minutes later and deeper into the mine I was handed what I thought was a prop for instructional purposes but soon found out that I was holding dynamite. They then light a fuse...not connected to my dynamite.... about 3 feet from me and displayed how even when submerged in water it would not go out. I kept thinking how the safety and liability issues of this tour would make it impossible to have in the US and also about how strange it was that they had me holding dynamite next to a lit fuse. Was this a normal or safe practice? And why out of all 15 of us did they hand it to the white boy? Was it planned or are Filipino's smarter than me? Then they took us to a fork in the tunnel where they were recently mining. It had been shored up with donnage and the blast left a hole about 10 feet deep. Thankfully that was the end of the tour and we reversed and went back the way we came in the rail cars. About 100 feet before exiting the tour guide then calmly said..."ok, now we will detonate the dynamite." We all expected a count down but as soon as she finished the sentence.."BOOM!" and were were all hit in the face with a shock wave of pressure. We were all stunned and she told us that was just 1 stick for instruction purposes but that they normally blast with 30 sticks. We all made it out of the mine, into the car and said enough prayers to make it back up the steep windy road in a 15 pax van not suited for off road conditions.
Our Last day was spent at the zip lines. The rides were okay with the superman being the most exciting. Anna is not the adventurous type when it comes to rides and took it easy on the canopy ride. I tried the free-fall but the guy before me was more fun to watch.
No comments:
Post a Comment