Travel: Sleepless on the road to Davao, via Bukidnon

Sleepless on the road to Davao, via Bukidnon

By Walter I. Balane / 12 November 20041st of 2 parts
DAVAO CITY -­ “Pinoy Balot! Balot mo diha!”

The voice of a vendor of steamed duck egg delicacy echoes in the area. At 10 p.m., Cagayan de Oro’s Agora bus terminal, one of the busiest in Northern Mindanao, is a silent, gloomy and eerie place.
Three buses -- those they call not “sleeping” or not staying for the night at the terminal -- were preparing to go. Filled with sleepy and tired passengers, the lighted buses barely provided energy to the sleepy terminal.
The older bus, with a signboard “Wao” (Lanao del Sur) had the least number of passengers; followed by another one bound for Tacurong, Sultan Kudarat and the bigger and newer one for Davao City.
I was in the third bus. Tired from a meeting earlier, I had to endure sleepiness and the heat inside a non-airconditioned vehicle. Buses ply the Cagayan de Oro-Davao route even at night, when nobody wants to travel at all, ­or so I thought.
The air inside the vehicle was all but fresh. With the glass windows down and the passengers crowding around me, I was about to alight and forego my trip.
I knew I couldn’t do that. There was only one bus line plying the route, so you didn’t have many choices actually. At least, these days, they now have buses leaving on a round-the-clock schedule.
As the driver turned the engine on, everyone else scattered in and out of the bus, quickly took their places; then the bus steward went around issuing tickets and collecting fares, I.D.’s and passes.
This is normally the scenario every time I travel at night on a long distance trip. Either I am coming from home, Malaybalay City, or straight from coverage in the “city of Golden Friendship,” there is always the hassle. At night, airconditioned buses are rare in the Bukidnon-Davao highway.
But one thing you could be thankful about night bus trips, however, is that sometimes not all the seats are taken and you can actually sit and relax.
The bus is normally full when it leaves Agora terminal and is empty by the time it reaches Ecoland terminal seven hours later.
Since it is going to be too cold to let any window open, only the one at the driver’s side is giving air to at least 50 passengers. So you could just imagine how it feels to breath, add to that smokers and arm pit vultures.
To be able to slide those windows up in some stopovers and take some fresh air is really a relief. Even with the conditions in the bus, the trip could also be comforting.
Along this almost 300-kilometer stretch of the Bukidnon-Davao highway, you can find yourself nocturnal.
Puerto
At night, Puerto (this is Cagayan de Oro’s version of Ulas) is surprisingly still full of vendors. Sometimes they sell you pineapple slices from Del Monte’s Camp Philips plantations (they
claim, but I doubt) and boiled bananas.
You would know when you’re in Puerto at night, around 15 minutes away from Agora because after this place, the bus starts its climb through Carmen Hills and go up Bukidnon’s mountainous terrain.
In the initial ascent from Puerto, you could catch a view of Cagayan de Oro by night. With harbor lights, sea vessels leaving the Macajalar port and the sparkling street lights, Cagayan de Oro’s view from the top is a delight to any traveler.
For someone too sleepy to appreciate it, the scene is like a candlelight about to be put off -- into the darkness.
Indeed, after the lights and sounds of Cagayan de Oro, the trip would be engulfed in darkness through the lonely and contemplative highway between Cagayan de Oro and Bukidnon.
Alae
The next stop is something only loyal people from Bukidnon could yield to. In this border barangay between Cagayan de Oro and Manolo Fortich, Bukidnon, one needs to go down to take a footbath.
Alae is known for this stopover, placed by the provincial government of Bukidnon “to protect its animals from food and mouth diseases.” This is supposed to be a heroic thing to do for Mindanao’s livestock industry; if only everybody is into it.
Whether you would go down or not, expect to be awakened from your trip to dreamland. Someone will board the bus and announce what is going on. The harder part is the bus departs even if only a tenth of the passengers heeded the call.
It is irritating to look at that, but that is only the beginning.
The idea of a long trip ahead takes these nuances at the sideline. The image of a safe arrival comes to mind as a motivation for a tired passenger of long uncertain hours.
One has to decide to be light-hearted, to trust the one at the steering wheel and to contend with “Boy Scout antics.”
In Alae, at least, is one stopover where you can buy food and drinks, take a leak at a pay toilet and -- take a deep breath for the longer part of the trip. (To be continued)