Note: I posted this in my other blog 3 years ago.
The bus crawled its way up that rugged terrain of Benguet on a pitch-dark night. It was Holy Wednesday. Everyone in the bus who slumbered for hours roused on their seats, beamed with anticipation, and let out sighs of relief knowing that 9-hour backbreaking bus ride we endured has finally reached its end.
It was my first trip to Baguio City, Benguet’s crown city, after spending years drooling over postcards and travel posters. I was with my two best friends, Richel and Renzy, who were equally as excited as I was on our first trip together. For people like us who never traveled 50kms away from Manila, this can be considered quite a rare phenomenon. A milestone for that matter.
Arrangements for a 3-day room accommodation were booked weeks before we set out to explore the highlands. A Baguio-based friend whom we never met except in chatrooms volunteered to help us arrange everything – from sleeping quarters to destinations to visit. He was already waiting for us by the time we reached the bus terminal just before midnight. As expected, he was not a Brad Pitt look-a-like my friends and I had to kill each other for. He was just some big kid who just got out of school with neutral looks.
Our young guide, who looked older than us by 10 years, took us to our lodging place inside a subdivision called Happy Homes, a couple of minutes away from Burnham Park. It was a 2-storey apartment with empty living room, dark empty kitchen and three empty rooms upstairs. The only decent room had a light bulb, a floor mattress, a red blanket good for one, PC sitting on floor and an empty cabinet. It was a complete opposite of what we were told. We were expecting a room good for three complete with bed, blanket and pillows, a nice bathroom and kitchen. But this one turned out to be a suburban blackhole.
Apparently left without much choice in the middle of the night with all transient inns and hotels booked for the Holy Week, my friends and I decided to stay, rest and plan our day trip. Our seemingly nice host kept appearing at the door to check if everything was okay. He even stayed for an hour more talking to us about the trip, where to go, what to buy and even volunteered himself to be the trip’s guide. None of us wanted him but our instincts were united that night in treating him nice rather than let our sarcasm risk the possibility of turning him into some hideous chainsaw psycho. And to make matters worse, he took his mattress inside our room and slept.
I barely had any sleep at all. I was so distracted by the presence of this dense 250-kilogram intruder who snored louder than any commercial jet planes combined. I sat down and watched him sleep like a tired old worn-out truck.
Our first morning in Baguio was marked with utter dismay. My friends and I had to boil water with a heating rod, took bath in turns, dressed up somewhere in the house fearing our unwanted roommate could be feigning sleep (or insanity) and use his third eye to watch us go starkers. We left the bloody apartment long before consciousness returned to him.
The next day was the same as the first one. Instead of enjoying our three-day getaway, we worried about the fat mammal waiting for us back home. We stayed longer outside that village, docked in several places to kill time, subsisted in fast food and went home midnight. And as expected, he would open the door for us, lead us upstairs, ask questions, pull out his mattress and sleep beside us.
My friends and I decided to cut the trip short and packed up early morning of Good Friday. Never mind if that would mean sleeping at the bus terminal. Our dense host looked particularly sad at the breaking of the news that ended our slumber party. We decided to pay him only half of the agreed rental fee and expressed our disappointment. When we were already on board the bus bound to Manila, we texted him all the gore details that pissed us off hoping it all went right through his thick skin. And if by some chance he shows up in Manila, I’ll make sure he lands on a stick.
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