summer places to remember

"time will come when my body will no longer be able to travel. but in my heart and mind, i will revisit those little corners of the earth where a part of my soul rested, a portion of my heart stayed, and in my mind, they will always be alive." -- mahatma gandah.

what is it about summer that inspires wanderlust? is it because of the heat and the sunshine that penetrate even the coldest and darkest places inside our souls? i leave you to ponder on these questions on this bright but late sunday morning, when i just had my favourite breakfast of vaghnet salad (the sinful meat from ilocos mixed with fresh, red, plump tomatoes and swimming in fish sauce and cane vinegar also from ilocos) and steamed rice.

anyway, i promised you my dearies in my last post that i will have part two of my favourite summer places. actually, there isn't much more because every nook of the earth is a place to remember as long as you are with love ones, or if you happen to be alone (as in my case most of the time. i love traveling alone, getting lost, figuring out where to go next and where home is), and then you met someone who made the stay worthwhile. brief dalliances with strangers are soooo romantic, right?

basey. since my younger sister got married and decided to live in this part of western samar, it has become a de-facto summer place for our family, especially during the holy week which happens to sometimes fall on my nephew's (my younger sister's oldest kid) birthday. so off we go, the whole family inside my father's old, dilapidated car, and another rented van (we are a huge clan. we don't fit in just one or two cars) with the entire kitchen on a two-hour trip on scorching, dusty roads, where newly-harvested palays left to dry under the sun sometimes occupy half of the streets.

we love the place. not only does it have nice beaches, but basey also boasts of some of the nicest rivers and falls (ok, mini fall) in this part of samar. too, there are the fresh, cheap fish that you can buy straight from the banca, and if that's your thing, shop for banigs, bags and other fashionable items, wall decors made of native materials found in the thick forests of basey.

just don't expect five-star like resorts and other amenities. these resorts are mostly family-owned and run by relatives, so there's not much to them than the basics: nice beach, a nipa hut, kitchen, restrooms, faucets with running water where you wash, or take a bath after a whole day's swim.

we have a favourite one, but it was totally destoyed by yolanda. my sister said the last time she was there, even the tall, proud coconut trees were gone. sad. but the beach is still lovely, she added: (cliche alert) crystal clear but very blue sea, endless white sands, mysterious rocks and rocky formations that look like sculptures honed by nature.

(our april birthday boy, enjoying the pool from sun up to sun down.)

sagada. i am not a mountain person. though i miss the deep silence it offers, trekking amid thick vegetations while being paranoid about stepping into snakes and other dangerous creatures is not my thing. but from time to time, i climb sagada to enjoy its warmth, solace and solitude.

if you're lucky, there are sometimes cute tourists from places as far away as switzerland that you can spend a few hours with, just talking over bottles of beer at night when the cold mountain breeze makes you long for a company or two.

for more about sagada, please read this post. it's about my sagada adventure and how to get there.

baguio. say what you want about baguio: polluted, crowded, commercialised especially after a giant mall opened years ago, expensive. but the city is still my favourite go to when i want to escape manila's heat. too, baguio holds a lot of memories of my carefree, careless youth, when every corner of the pine city promises a possibility beyond anybody's dream.

the city used to have a piano bar called songs, owned by a doctor. its resident singers then played a lot of jazz (not the hard-to-reach new orleans variety but the louis armstrong, ella fitzegerald versions. luckily, no kenny gs. haha), and served really cold beer, colder than your ex's heart. haha. it's where most of the pretty boys of baguio hung out, and the tourists from manila chased the night away intoxicated with both music and beer.

i also love going to the palengke, its labyrinthian stalls and narrow, crowded pathways, the bursts of colours from flowers and fruits in season, the variety of products both fresh and not so fresh that are on offer, on display, or just plain staring at you with the silence of a dead night.

for more about baguio, read one of my favourite posts about the city of pines.

cebu. i always associate the city with my first taste of freedom.

it was here, the so-called queen city of the south, where i arrived one sweltering summer day after i left our home for the first time, to stay in a dormitory with strangers. it was, of course, frightening at first, but being young and eager for adventure, everything turned perfectly well even after a few weeks only, the transition made easier with the help and the company of fellow freshmen who came from different places of the visayas and mindanao and who were also there to study at the university right across from the four-story dormitory.

cebu is a popular destination for young people from nearby islands to get their college degrees because it has the best universities in the country, mostly centuries-old and ran by the religious.

another attraction are its grand, old churches such as the santo nino shrine downtown near the crazy beautiful colon street, that offer comfort and solace to the weary religious. i used to go there, praying for guidance and help especially during exam weeks, and especially when i ran out of allowance. haha. those shallow days.

in my youth, cebu was this nice, little city (i can walk from uptown to downtown in less than an hour), with modern shopping malls and the latest fashion and movies, without the overcrowding, pollution and traffic that bedevilled its bigger cousin, manila. 

i remember going to colon just to while the time, when money was short, just wandering around, adrift and lost in a crowd. if i had a few pesos more, i would eat at the gaisano food court (hotdog waffle and mango shake) or at orange brutus and had my favourite burger and shakes. if i just had my allowance, i would go to sunburst restaurant and enjoy their couture fried chicken, served hot.

the last time i was in cebu, i visited my old university, dormitory, the sto nino shrine, and wandered around junquera and colon. reminiscing about those days. 

no matter how manila-like cebu has become, it will always have a special place in my soul. cebu, after all, was where i lost my innocence.