A Trip Away From Home

"April 21, 2008 Monday. A Lot or things happened that day. Many endearing encounters with many discreet things."

We were going on a road trip. Me , my parents, my sister, my grandpa, and my cousin. Marilog was the destination, and far away was the location. At first, I really didn't want to go, and while I was in the car, I just slept. There wasn't a pinch of interest in my mind, but just a pinch. not even enough to make me want to wake up and eat, but i didn't have any choice.

Well, the reason why we went there was that my mom bought a little patch of land in the Marilog Province. About 4 times the size or our lot here in Davao, and about 40 times less likable as well. What can I say? I admit, it was a drag.

After more than an hour on the road, we finally got there. Dad parked the car near a local church. The church was standing right next to a pretty steep cliff and it looked like it was about to collapse any minute. Just going near it made me feel nauseous. Little did I know that we were supposed to go down that cliff to go to our "little patch of land"

So it was me, my mom, my dad, my cousin, my sister and Boy, the amazing-mountain-walker guy who looks like Gandalf from "Lord of The Rings". He's our guide. We left Tatay behind because, at his age, he can't possibly survive a long walk like that, he wouldn't even be able to go as far as ten steps... [no offense Tay... :) ]

25 minutes of walking up-hill and down-hill. Tiring? Yes. Worth-it? Nope. I'm sorry to say this but it looked terrible. When we got there, I immediately said "This is what we walked for?" It was terrible! It was hot and weedy and messy and dangerous! It was terrible! Its a good thing there were pretty interesting looking bugs down there.

Usually, here in the city, when we see flies, we kill them, right? Not only because of their filthy existence, but also because of their disgusting features. Here, on the other hand, is different. In Marilog, their flies have really, really BIG GREEN EYES. I was so amazed! I've never seen a green eyed fly before. They were big and looky. You know what looky is? It means they look at you... a lot! They just kept on looking. I don't know... maybe I had something on my face or something... it was weird. They even followed us back up to the car.

When we got back to the car, food was our first target. Because of that exhausting walk in the mountain/forest/wasteland(/soccer field?), hunger became the new problem. As soon as we had our eyes on the car, and said hi to Tatay, food was in our minds. Food food food… mmmmmmmmm…. :9

After eating, drinking and a little farting, if I might say, we all went in the car and the car went even deeper into the roads of the Marilog Province. Well, not really that deep inside, maybe just about 200 meters further in. Anyway, we went to another patch of land, with coffee planted all over, and children playing all around. It was a hill on the mountain. And not just any ordinary hill, you see, there was a legend amongst us at the time.

There was this house you see. And this house was standing on top of this hill you hear. Now, this ain’t no ordinary house. Its abandoned. Why? Oh, you wouldn’t want to know, but I’ll tell ye anyway… *Evil Laugh*

So there was a house at the top most part of the hill. Actually, it was a pretty nice looking house. The sad part about it was that there was once one man who lived in that house, who died. He was at the roof, fixing something, they said, and it was at the middle of a heavy ferocious rain. They say that he just fell of, and his skull opened along with the fall. Some say that they saw someone, or something, go up the roof with him hit his head with something. Some say he was struck by lightning. No one knows exactly, but they do know this. Ever since that accident happened, people have never lasted a day in that house. They call it nothing and they treat it like nothing so that nothing goes in and nothing goes out. But hey! I got a glimpse of nothing! That’s cool right?

On the way back home, we came across this little café along the road. I didn’t see it at first because I was asleep going to Marilog. Unfortunately, time did not allow me to go back to sleep on our trip back, but its ok because I got to eat really nice and fresh tasting bread.

The café’s name was Logdeck. It was owned by an Israelite and a rather nice one if I might add. He served us so generously. He gave a cup o’ Joe for everyone, nice Israelite pita bread, and one really big omelet for everyone on the house(ok... only the first batch of bread was on the house... unfortunately, we ordered a lot more food afterwards...). The omelet was wonderful; it had all these different spices in it. Parsley, oregano, chives, and some onions I think. Anyway, the owner/cook/waiter’s name was Odet. He must’ve been the same age as my parents; he had a rather amusing accent, white balding hair, and a good sense of taste, that’s for sure.

At the end, everything went well. We all enjoyed ourselves, had a nice afternoon home, had a nice nap, had good food to eat and, most importantly, a good story to tell. I enjoyed our trip to Marilog, even though at first I thought it was going to be terrible. It was actually very exciting, fun and delightful.

Unfortunately, we weren't able to get any more pictures because the camera's battery ran dry on us. Hehehe...