The following morning, with my first hangover since Canada, I packed up and moved out. A ferry back to Caticlan on Panay was the first leg of the journey. After some hunting around, I discovered a boat that would take me to Carabao Island. It soon became apparent that this was no passenger ferry, but a cargo boat…loaded to the gills with supplies (beer, soft drinks, petrol and dog biscuits). This is the Philippines though so there was no shortage of passengers to take advantage of the ride. We sailed back past Boracay where a few of the passengers and some goods were off-loaded. Worryingly, there was quite a crowd gathered on the beach, waiting to be ferried aboard. Fortunately, the astute captain, decided that our heavily-laden boat was too crowded for any more and we set sail for Carabao, leaving a few disgruntled folk to wait for the next boat. The seas were pretty heavy…something that left me grateful for my late embarkation. Sat on the roof, I was in full view of both my luggage and, more importantly, the horizon. As the boat pitched and rolled in the dark, heavy water, those down below grew increasingly nauseous. Sitting in the cooling breeze, feeling the spray, a broad grin grew on my face. For the first time, I really felt like I was an intrepid traveller. There were no other tourists aboard and I felt like I was taking a voyage into the unknown. After two hours we arrived on the South side of Carabao Island. Rather than take a further hour round to San Jose in the boat, I jumped off with some other passengers and climbed aboard my first Jeepney. The little 1.3litre engine struggled up steep tracks and round tight bends with a full load of passengers and baggage. As we passed along avenues of coconut palms, through thick forest and by open rice paddies, I couldn’t suppress that grin again. Every turn in the road brought a clearing, populated by nipa huts and grazing Carabao (buffalo). Occasionally, groups of school children would jump out of the way of the speeding jeepney and stand staring at the giant white man, grinning maniacally out of the back door. After half an hour of reasonably bone-jarring and white-knuckle engine revving, we came to a halt in San Jose. Helpfully, the driver stopped right outside the only hotel, where I was able to secure a nipa hut for a negligible fee. After dumping my bags, I set about finding someone with a motorbike to take me around the island. My usual lucky streak kicked in nicely and the first guy I met was Pablo. At 25, he was the island’s chief electric engineer. His natty, purple motocross bike was ideal and we set off on a hair-raising, but thoroughly enjoyable trip around the island. Yah, boo sucks! to the health and safety…this was local transport at its best. There’s probably about 1km of paved roads on the island – the rest, little more than what we’d call footpaths in the countryside. Pablo showed me some beautiful untouched corners and, I have to say, road with the utmost care at all times. How his poor little arms must have felt after wrestling that bike up hill and down dale with me on the back, I’ll never know. Certainly, the dull ache in my thighs and knuckles after gripping the saddle and luggage rack must be something to go by. We stopped for lunch at the Carabao Beach resort – an idyllic, peaceful little spot, with white sand and views back over the sea to Boracay. The proprietress, Melanie, had lived with in Germany with her husband for 17 years and spoke excellent English. She served up seafood Bolognese with a side dish of pickled fish (the local equivalent of roll-mop herring with a healthy portion of fresh chillies) and a dessert of videoke. Eventually, after two relaxing hours we were on our way to Ngiriton cave at the island’s northern end. Unfortunately, when we arrived, it turned out the local tourist board and decided to develop the caves for ease of access to tourists – installing lights and hand-rails etc. – this meant that the cave was closed for the ongoing work. Nevertheless, the tour of the island itself was more than enough…I still couldn’t wipe the grin of my face as we flew down the hill back to San Jose, with the wind ruffling my hair (no laughing at the back!). Pablo and I sat on the beach for some time, talking about his family and his job and our shared love of music. I ran to pick up my cd player and let him listen to one of Dave’s trance mixes. He was suitably impressed, as a fellow dj would be, and asked if I’d write to him and send him the occasional cd. He was a thoroughly nice kid and I definitely intend to stay in touch with him…and maybe seem him again someday when I return to the Philippines. Long after he’d gone, I sat on the beach as the sun sank behind the island, enjoying the cooling breeze and listening to trance.
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