Baguio City – Exit day…AND Arrival in Busuanga

Baguio City – Exit day… AND Arrival in Busuanga…(Saturday, June 14)

They say a picture is worth a thousand words… Today, I will do most of my “talking” through pictures. The goal is to give a you a sense of what it is like to be in the car and or flight as we make our way to our next destination, the island of Busuanga.

We were up and on the road around 7:30 AM. We each are still awakening around 5:30 each morning – this gave us ample, no stress time to get packed up and ready to go.

Before we drove out of the city – or I should say coast down the mountain – we stopped at Dunkin Donuts for breakfast. Again, we welcomed a little taste of home.

As we proceeded down the mountain, my husband coached me… be sure to coast whenever you can. We don’t want the brakes to get too hot. “Lovely,” I thought to myself. Alas, we didn’t need to get the fire extinguisher out. And yes, there is one in the car.

Enjoy the drive…

Heading out… I can see me dreaming about this in the near future.

“Sweet, Sweet” Baguio City. We bid thee farewell.

Jeepnees have all different kinds of decorations.

How about this foot path up the mountainside? It even has a handrail. ~_~

Whether you are going up or down, it is curve after curve.

And up pops this lion head. I have no idea its significance. No time to take a “long look” out my window. I am keeping my eyes on the road.

The river below…

I love this tire planter

“Pass one at a time.” Is there another option?

Just so you know, that is NOT a toy excavator

Yasssss….lovely flat, smooth roads

My internal little girl, again cried, “LANDDD!” as we pulled into our parking space at Avis. All went smoothly. The attendant was very kind and helpful. She let us know that once the car was returned to the office in Manila and they did the final check over the car, we would receive an email that “closes our account.” It has yet to be seen if we will need to pay extra for the slight mishap during our travels in Baguio City. I console myself knowing that the maximum amount we would pay according to our documents is a deductible of $260.00 Not bad – all things considered.

Sigh of relief… the car is returned, and its passengers are all in one piece.

Avis shuttled us to Clark International Airport. This airport is much smaller and very easy to navigate.

MC and I are BOTH thrilled that I am not driving for the moment. Although MC would often tell me while I was driving. “You are doing good, Mom.” ~_~

Clark International Airport

Clark’s SUBWAY. Eat fresh! Little did we know how comforting tastes of home would be. Our tummies have been intermittently rumbly with the sampling of Filipino food – MC more than the rest of us.

I feel somewhat “special” as we board a bus and then disembark to climb up into our airplane. Maybe this is a small taste of how the VIPs travel? Even on a less boujee level, it was a fun experience to be bused to our plane.

Transport Bus

We flew Philippine Airlines, but this plane of identical nature was right next to ours

As we board our plane and are seated, I am grateful for the leg room on the the long flight over here.

Luckily, this was only a one hour flight

Bye, Bye, Manila. (Island of Luzon) The Bulucan Volcano is in the background.

Hello, Island of Busuanga

The airport in Busuanga is even smaller than Clark airport and is not air conditioned. However, they do have large fan / air cooling units. While we wait for our luggage, I sit Dad next to one of these.

Once we have all of our suitcases, we walk outside to wait for our van (Busuanga Bay Lodge provides a shuttle to and from the airport).

The 40 minute drive to Busuanga By Lodge was primarily over paved roads, with the last section of road being dirt. Let me tell you, it was so nice NOT to be the one driving, and I am sure my husband was relieved to just be a passenger, taking a well deserved break from all of his navigational duties!