My world walk blog - The Philippines #2
The Philippines #2
That
first day on the road in the Philippines. It was late, almost 3 pm when
we started to walk across the island of Cebu. Today I had the luxury of
being accompanied by an old Irish friend called Francis Cosgrave.
He lives on the island with his wife Nida and their three children for almost twenty years.
Much
of the day was spent walking uphill to a summit in the tropical Busay
region which Francis said is famous for its delicious mangos. We walked
along the so-called central highway with the temperature at a
comfortable mid-twenties °C. Heavy traffic sometimes hampered our
progress. A colourful parade with enthusiastic marching bands and an
exciting fiesta in one of the communities slowed us down further. We
made many stops to talk to people and it was one of those days when I
didn't care about our slow progress. The Philippines was once a Spanish
colony but it seems that the brief period that it was under American
rule has had a greater lasting effect. It seems to me that everyone
speaks English. At least I haven't met anyone who doesn't speak the
language. Signage is almost totally in English and the couple of
Filipino signs I came across had some Spanish words mixed in. I was told
that the national language has its fair share of Spanish influence.
Because of our late start we only managed 12 kilometres before darkness
We
finished at the turnoff for a location called The Top Of Cebu and then
made our way back to the Cosgrave house by local transport.
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