February 21: Manila to Mount Pinatubo

February 20

It was a day of traveling via van, two buses and a modified tuk tuk.  All and all — it was about a five hour trip from downtown Manila to a small town just outside of Mount Pinatubo.  We just used our three backpacks and left our two pieces of luggage at the hotel.  This was an excellent decision as the first bus and tuk tuk were really tight.

When we finally arrived, we grabbed some food at a local restaurant and then crashed in our warm hotel room.

February 21

Ugh — another paid tour, another misunderstanding! Yikes, in what is becoming a familiar theme, the tour we expected was not what we were given.  You would assume that a tour of Mount Pinatubo would include a visit to the famous Mount Pinatubo crater and lake.  Wrong — we visited two small and extremely poor villages but no Mount Pinatubo crater.  “It is closed,” said our tour guide and with those words the anger began to rage in both of us.  But before the fallout, I must admit that the village tours hit me pretty hard—the first one, in particular. The kids were all super dirty as they lived in squalor with dead animals under huts made of bamboo.  We walked by an old elementary school, which was desperately in need of repair and upgrade.  Got me to thinking that if I had money I would love to open a school here with the sole purpose of providing students with the knowledge, skills and habits of mind to improve their lifestyle and those of family members.  But, what village do you pick? And, in what country?

Now, to the blowout— we were scheduled to pay 4900 pesos (approximately $100) for a Jeep tour of Mount Pinatubo. However, as mentioned above, we didn’t visit Mount Pinatubo.  We expected a refund of some sort — I’m confident that Kimchi expected a total refund.  We eventually agreed to pay 4000 pesos including the 1000 pesos owed for the room. I wasn’t thrilled by this agreement but I figured we had nothing to go on since nothing was written down again!  I thought that I had learned my lesson so I have to own a portion of the blame.  

After packing our stuff and filling out an entry form for Baguio, we headed out on a tiny tuk tuk for the 30 minute drive into Cevas.  As we poured ourselves out, we grabbed lunch while Kimchi extracted every bit of information from three guys having lunch and our two waitresses.  The waitresses were wonderful— happy, funny, and helpful.  

From here, we boarded a bus to Tarlac, where we waited an hour for a bus to Dagupan. This trip to Dagupan was scheduled to take two hours when we boarded at about 3:15 pm