A Series of Unfortunate Events

(WARNING: Nobela ito.)


Niks, Jeni and I began planning our dream vacation to Coron—scheduled for August---as early as last May. We scheduled YM conferences to talk about the trip. We scouted resorts. We travelled all the way to Robinson’s Galleria to pay for our plane tickets. I made a down payment for our rooms. Niks searched “Coron” in Google Images nonstop. To say that we were excited is an understatement.

On August 1, the day of our trip to Coron, we were at the airport by 6:30 AM. Twenty-four hours later, we got off our boat and landed on the powdery white sand beach of... Boracay.


Unfortunate event 1: Delayed, then canceled flight

A few days before our trip, it started raining in Metro Manila. Niks became alarmed. She sent me a message expressing her concern. The eternal optimist that I am, I told her by the time we board the plane, the weather would be fine. Three hours before the trip, it was still raining. That should have been a sign for us, but we wanted to go to Coron so badly so even when, according to Niks’s mom, Kuya Kim said there was a storm brewing, we hoped against hope that the trip would push through. By 9:00, we were still not boarding. The flight had been delayed because of the rain. Uh-oh. An hour and 45 minutes later, it was announced that our flight has “definitely” been cancelled.

Unfortunate event 2: Cebu Pacific-the Airline from Hell

So there was a storm and half of the flights going in and out of Manila were being cancelled. Good sense would dictate that we go accept what Fate has dealt us and go back home, and for a moment there, we almost did. But then we kept getting this image of Julius, Billy and all our friends we bragged to about going to Coron to laughing at our misfortune that we decided to go on with our trip, storm and all.
We thought about going to Batangas and Puerto Galera, but those two seemed like they were a few hundred notches below the level of Coron, so we decided to go to Bohol instead, even if this meant paying a couple of thousand pesos more for the plane tickets (we are talking about pride here, people, PRIDE). We went to the Cebu Pacific ticketing office to have our flights changed, and by 11:05, the Cebu Pacific employee manning counter number 5 already had our tickets and money (to pay for the fare difference) with her. At around 11:12, the girl handed back our tickets and money and told us that she could not book us on the flight anymore since it it’s already past the one-hour pre-flight mark (the flight, if you’d recall, was at 12-freaking-10). We went pleasantly ballistic. Our conversation went something like this:

CEBU PACIFIC GIRL: Ma’am, di ko na po kayo ma-bo-book.
ME: Ha?! Bakit?
CEBU PACIFIC GIRL: E kasi po dapat one hour before the flight ma-book. E 11:12 na po.
ME: Two minutes lang lampas hindi na pwede?
CEBU PACIFIC GIRL: Dapat po talaga one hour before e.
ME: By 11:05, nasa sayo na ung tickets and pera. So technically, we started making our purchase one hour before 12:10.
CEBU PACIFIC GIRL: Opo. Kaso 11:10 na ako natapos, sarado na computer.
ME: E kanina pa kami nandito. Atsaka dapat sana me alternative way kayo ng pag-book for cases like this. Kasalanan ba namin na matagal kayo?
CEBU PACIFIC GIRL: Nagpa-compute pa kasi kayo e.
ME: E 11:05 pa nga lang you already had our money e.
CEBU PACIFIC GIRL: Oo nga po.

Tired of the endless cycle of stupidity, we told her to call her manager. That too was pointless because the manger---who had the biggest eyes, ugliest 80s make-up and worst asymmetrical haircut we have ever seen (personalan na to)---basically gave the same crappy excuse. And the worse thing about it, as Jeni said, is that they didn’t even seem apologetic about it. I know that in cases of canceled flights, decent airlines provide their clients with free accommodations. They did not really have to book us into a hotel, we would have been more forgiving if they said "sorry" even once. STUPID CEBU PACIFIC!

Unfortunate event 3: Late, late, afternoon flight

We couldn’t go to Bohol. That should have been another sign, right? No. We decided to go to Boracay instead.
We booked the 5 PM flight, which means that when we boarded the plane at 4, we have already been at the airport for about 10 hours. That’s one day of our already-short vacation gone.


Unfortunate event 4: A boat (not ours) that overturned

Traveling from Kalibo to Caticlan (did you know that Cebu Pacific no longer has flights going to Caticlan?) takes about two hours, so it was already 8 PM when we got to the Caticlan port. When we got there, what greeted us was the news that there were no longer trips going to Boracay since the waves were pretty big and a boat already overturned.
We spent the night in a dingy, overpriced lodge, but which thankfully had cable TV (this was the only lucky break we have had so far).



Unfortunate event 5: Cold, rainy and wet boat trip

It was still raining when we woke up the next day and we were all kinda afraid about getting on the boat with the news about the overturned boat still fresh in our minds, but we really had no choice. We did not come all the way here only to turn back. It was now or never, all or nothing, Boracay or bust. We soldiered on.



Unfortunate event 6: Windy, windy Boracay

When we got there, Boracay was not the summery paradise we hoped it would be. The wind was so strong it bent the coconut trees. The waves were so big they looked like they could paralyze you if you dared to go into the water. All the stores and resorts were boarded up. It was, apparently, habagat season.



Unfortunate event 7: I got sick

We were about to explore the island’s bars and restaurants and experience its famous night life when I suddenly felt dizzy. I had to go back to our hotel room to puke/sleep. The universe was conspiring against us.


All these things considered, the trip really wasn’t such a bad trip. The 10 hours we spent at the airport afforded us the chance to talk about everything---from our classmates’ current lives, our pets, our quirky families to how unintentionally funny (Kuya) Kim Atienza is (“Ano kaya ang mangyayari kung ididikit ko and dila ko sa frozen na bakal na ito?...Mga kaibigan, dumikit po ang dila ko”).
We met a lot of funny people, like the resort owner (“yang the Dawn ang tagal na di pa rin sumisikat”), the janitor (“ang malas niyo ma’am, di niyo ma-enjoy Boracay…ang malas-malas niyo talaga”) and the trinkets vendors (“tatlong buwan na kaming di kumakain…ng lobster”).
We, well, Jeni and Niks, made “friends in high places” (a bar singer who sang on a stage---high place na un dib a?).
I was able to cross off one of the things on my Things-to-Do-Before-I-Die list (38. Go to Boracay with my friends.)
We got to swim in calm waters too. Sure we had to pay 1,200 to go island hopping, still, the experience was worth it.



I still hate Cebu Pacific though.