DOWN SOUTH | In Cebu, a road trip for the disquieted

Tingko Beach—a public beach at Alcoy, Cebu—has gradually gathered attentions for its flash sand and clear water. Photo by Jona Branzuela Bering, InterAksyon.com.

Sometimes sleeping is hard. While the night silenced the rest of my hood, my mind refused to quiet down. It kept on thinking, thinking, thinking. My mind, however, thinks best when in transit. To lie down in bed and be in deep thought, for me, should not go together. Perhaps it’s because subconsciously, it is my way to save myself from insanity and self-loathing. Often, I allow the body to move with the disquietude of the mind until my whole system relaxes and goes to sleep.
So I got up, replenished my litter’s bowls, packed extra clothes, hurriedly wore a bikini beneath a loose blouse, and left.
At three in the morning, the bus was a giant mammoth on the road of intermittent silence. Their honks —the driver’s “hi’s” to their fellow bus drivers on the opposite lane—cut my naps short.

Pebble Beach at Santander, Cebu offers different shades of blue. Photo by Jona Branzuela Bering, InterAksyon.com.

Dawn, for me, is the best time to start a road trip. Between nodding off because of sleepiness, the towns—framed by the bus window— slowly rose from their deep slumber and prepared for another countryside kind of day. At five, old people, early risers as they are, idle by the road with their hands crossed, or with a cigarette or tobacco roll tucked between their lips, or a cup of coffee in hand. At half past five especially on weekdays, the kitchen light was on. As early as seven, kids walked their way to school.
For a countryside woman making a living in the city, these sceneries tucked between my road-trip destinations reminded me of my own childhood.
In Cebu, I’m loyal to the southern towns. Almost every month I take the public bus and revisit places. It can be beaches, churches, springs, markets, or falls, depending in my mood. Recently, I had a sunrise moment and coffee at Tingko Beach, a public beach with luxurious sand in Alcoy.
By 8 a.m., I listened to the curator’s stories behind the antics and artifacts in the ecclesiastical museum at Boljoon’s Nuestra Senora Patrocinio de Maria, the oldest church in Cebu and revered as a National Historical Landmark. By noon, I was reading Aravind Adiga’s “Between the Assissinations” at Pebble Beach, my favorite beach in Liloan, Santander. I only crossed several pages when sleepiness took over me and napped for more than an hour. By 4 p.m., I idled at Alegria Park.

For a solo traveler, there is nothing greater a companion than a good book. Photo by Jona Branzuela Bering, InterAksyon.com.

I have been to these towns several times, but no amount of revisits can really make me claim that I know the place well. These places keep on changing. At Tingko, Ate Ana—who taught me the name “lilong” (a kind of small fish) three years ago—now has a room for rent next to her store. Boljoon’s seaside park was farther damaged by the 7.2 quake. I shared Pebble Beach with a different crowd: a couple, three girls from the city, and a local family. Three years ago, Ate Hasmin asked if a broken heart brought us on their beach. Alegria has now a manicured park by the coast.
Places keep on changing, so the more reason to keep on visiting, revisiting.

A local enjoys an early dip in Boljoon’s pristine sea with Eli Rock—one of the attractions in Boljoon. Photo by Jona Branzuela Bering, InterAksyon.com.

Before deciding to travel solo three years ago, I started with mountain climbing and road trips with a friend. Traveling solo often elicits fear and doubt, so a solo road trip can be a good start of solo travels to neighboring islands.
Once, a young woman asked me if it is not scary to ride buses alone. “What if,” she asked, “a madman sat beside you and cupped your breast or harassed you.” I could not eliminate the possibility.
But it is this very way of questioning that often paralyzes a woman from taking solo road trips or from traveling alone.

Boljoon Church is the oldest church in Cebu and considered as a National Historical Landmark. Photo by Jona Branzuela Bering, InterAksyon.com.

In the bus, you are a stranger just like the person next to you. Your fellow passengers are as worried as you: what if they missed their stop, what if my baby would not stop wailing, what if someone stole my bag in the overhead compartment—too many “what ifs.”
So what if, you—who taught of having a solo road trip—let go of your hundreds of “what ifs” and just hop in the bus.

Solo travelers are experts in taking self-timed portraits. Photo by Jona Branzuela Bering, InterAksyon.com.

Take this advice from Shams of Tabriz from Elif Shafak’s The Forty Rules of Love, “Fret not where the road will take you. Instead concentrate on the first step. That’s the hardest part and that’s what you are responsible for. Once you take that step let everything do what it naturally does and the rest will follow. Do not go with the flow. Be the flow.”
Yes, be the very flow.

Alegria Park has a baluarte (a watchtower ) built in the 1800s “to warn locals from invading pirates and moro raiders.” Photo by Jona Branzuela Bering, InterAksyon.com.