From Cebu City To Carcar, or, How I Met My XR200

Finally, things are starting to get off the ground. On Tuesday of this week I finally checked out of the Diplomat hotel. I returned the scooter back to Paul W and hopped on a couple jeepneys to get to the south bus terminal. Hauling my bag around was a huge pain. I rode a mini-bus down about 40 km to Carcar city, where I met up with Paul P., who offered to rent me a XR200 for a bargain. He needed to have a new chain put on it and have it serviced so I roomed up at the Traveler’s Inn in Carcar. A decent aircon room was ₱500. It took the whole next day to get the bike taken care of so I stayed another night. Here’s the bike:

The next day (Thursday) I called the airport to inquire into the status of my lost bag and IT HAS ARRIVED! I was so happy. I took the XR200 up to Cebu City (about 1 – 1.5hrs to the airport) and hot a nice sunburn on my hands, knees and arms in the process. When I arrived I confirmed my bag truly had arrived, over 1 week late. Thanks Korean Air, thanks. Anyway, I threw my gear on and noticed that a bag of gatorade packets and my motorcycle goggles were missing. They even took the replacement lenses I brought for the goggles. It was only worth about $35 total but I was a little put out. Thankfully the sunglasses I took with me work well enough.

After I got my gear put on I headed back to the motorcycle. If I got looks before, boy did I get them now! I don’t have a picture of myself with all my gear but I’ll get one shortly. The ride back to Carcar was a trial to see if I could handle the heat with 20 lbs of nylon on me. The gear I have is wonderful, perfect hot weather riding gear. Once I get up to about 10mph I can’t tell I’m wearing them at all, the breeze cuts right through the mesh. Overall I’m very happy. Of course, sitting at a stop light is a little annoying especially in the city where it absolutely never cools down because of all the asphalt and concrete.

I made it back to Carcar and decided to leave some of my gear with Paul P, like my tent (pension houses are plentiful) and a few other things I left to lighten my load. Even still, it’s going to be a feat packing my bag on the back of this thing securely. With all that it started getting dark and so I stayed another night at Traveler’s Inn. It’s Friday morning now and I’m going into town today to see how much it will cost to make a rack for the back of the bike and also to get the 12v car adapter installed.

I will admit I am a little homesick right now, a little homesick for Julie, Claire, and Charlie (but mostly Julie).

Before I go, here’s a picture of a breakfast I feasted upon last week. MMMM…

This is an entry in my Philippines 2010 travel log. Thanks for reading!