Off We Go! Road Trip Day 1

Here we are off to start the trip. In the early planning stages leaving times like 4am were thrown around so we could get to Banaue by noon. Those ideas were later dismissed for a more reasonable start time of 6, the 6:30, then 7. Have our actual departure at 7:30am.

This is our mini van. On Friday we got a call from the rental car company. We had reserved a car a month in advance, not wanting to get stuck with something super tiny and couldn't deal with mountain road. There was also the fact that neither of us could drive stick, so we need to insure the we would have an automatic vehicle. So on this wonderful Friday phone call they asked us if we would be willing to take a standard vehicle, to which there was a lot of anger and a lesson given on what the definition of a reservation means. To which he said we could pick our car up on Monday then which was 3 days into our trip. So after more anger and a lesson on professionalism they told us they would find something and deliver it to us that night. When the van pulled into our drive way I couldn't help but laugh. So we embraced our inner soccer moms and headed out. We named the van the bat cave, because the tint on the windows was so dark that at night you had to role down the windows in order to see out. Safety first in the Philippines!

At time through our journey we were left wondering, is this a real road? I thought it was supposed to be a national highway? We dodged rice being dried on the roads, trikes, carabao, goats, potholes and people. Here you can see the wonderful tinted window, which only had a small strip at on the front window which you could see out and experience daylight. 

Stopped for construction, this became a common occurrence. 

And yes I drove.

Starting to get into the mountains. The roads at time were very narrow, steep and windy. Our van's engine wasn't very big so as I was driving up the hills you would be flooring the gas and still you would see the gauge slowly drop down below 20, 15 10 km an hour. Luckily we never went backwards, but there was always that concern. 

We made it! The view from our hotel. 

We set out to explore the town, there's not much, but the weather is cool and it was nice to stretch our legs after an 8 hour car ride. This rickety bridge connects one half of the city to the other. The part that you walk are metal pieces just laid down on a frame work, not really attached to the bridge. I wouldn't exactly call it safe, but we didn't see anyone die, and we were both up to date with our tetanus shots, so why not?

Rice terrace! The first of many that would be explored on this trip. 

 After we explored, we went back to our hotel for dinner, in the mountains everything shuts down early. Example the only bar closes at 9 pm, and that's considered staying open late. So the evening wasn't eventful, we had dinner, showered and then we met with our guide and planned the next 3 days of hiking. The power kept going out around 8 pm. We were told that this was common during dry season because the increased use of electricity of the air cons and the water levels drop so the hydro-electric dam doesn't work as efficiently. So we were in bed by 9 pm.