Going to Butuan

On July 1, after grabbing some breakfast at Jolly Bee, Mady, Bea (her niece), and I hopped in a tricycle and went to the Tagum bus terminal. We had just missed the "AirCon" bus, along with a nun who was hoping to catch the same bus. A radio call was made and we were told to hop on a "non-AirCon" bus. Turns out the AirCon bus was at a fueling stop. We met it on the side of the road about 5 minutes up the road.

The ride was very scenic. To me the ride made Mindanao seem smaller than the locals describe it.  The reason is that most filipinos don't have money for the AirCon busses, and the non-AirCon busses make many stops, picking up people or dropping them off. The AirCon busses are the wheeled equivelent of "limited access interstates", but it's the vehicle, not the road, that has the limited access. The ride from Tagum to Butuan was just 5 hours. This was nothing to me after riding 15 hours on a plane with no scenery. I enjoy seeing what goes by out the window.

Riding a bus or jeepney in the Philippines you also notice that the main rule of the road is larger vehicles have the right of way. This is especially obvious when riding in an AirCon Bachelor Bus. These busses do not slow down when going through the smaller villages between bigger towns and cities...the driver just hits the horn BEFORE entering an area with pedestrian, tricycle, or smaller vehicle activity visible ahead. People just get out of the way, sometimes just barely, but I've never seen an accident. At slow speeds the Bachelor Bus will just pull out and anything smaller has to stop. Because all the drivers of smaller vehicles know the bus will do this, they anticipate needing to give way to the bus. It seems like chaos to an outsider, but it's just normal and everyone knows "their place" in the pecking order on the road.

Mindanao is a beautiful island.  The natural landscape of mountains, river plains, and lush tropical vegetation is beautiful. Too bad the bus is going too fast or bouncing up and down too much to catch a few pics through the window.

It's also fun to just observe what you see along the road, the appearance of villages, and the creative use of motorcycles.  Saw several "Skylabs" on the way, these are motorcycles with platforms allowing people or sacks of whatever to ride on outriggers.  It's certainly a very dangerous way to travel, but is very common. I was lucky to see how they get started from a stand-still.  We were at a bus terminal waiting for a few minutes. A "skylab" was loading near us. The driver is very skilled as it seems effortless as they drive away. I'll post my video when I'm back in the USA. My connection here is too slow.

Eme and Kian (12 weeks old)

We arrived in Butuan around 3 pm. Eme met us at the bus terminal and directed us to the tricycle side of the terminal. To our surprise Eme's landlord was waiting in her Honda "City" (smaller than a Civic). In just a few minutes we arrived at the apartment and it was the big moment - meeting my son, Kian, for the first time.