Return to Toledo & Back the Long Way

I thought I'd seen the last of Toledo but I had to make a return visit to close out some contract/paperwork issues.  I sent the driver off in advance the day before (Wednesday) as I didn't want to waste a whole day travelling.  I was to fly the following morning to meet up in Cebu.  However, the plan was to have an enjoyable and leisurely day travelling back again on the Friday, driving over the mountains of Negros.

I flew to Cebu on the Thursday and could've kicked myself for not picking the right seat for the flight: I should have sat on the right side (starboard?) as the weather was clear and as the flight crossed the island of Negros there were great views of Mt. Kanlaon. Of course I've seen it many times before but now that I have a confirmed date to climb it (19th March) I have a renewed interested in learning as much about it as I can.

Business in Cebu and Toledo was dealt with reasonable quickly and easily.  Not surprisingly I didn't miss any aspects of either location, apart perhaps for the scenic seaside locations.  Unfortunately, some of these have now been spoilt due to large pylons being constructed along the coast in order to distribute the electricity from the new power station.  The price of progress I guess.  I have to say that our chimney looked good (as good as an industrial edifice can look), now fully painted in red and white stripes and looking like a giant stick of Brighton rock.

Finished Article

On the Friday the plan was to catch the first ferry from Toledo to San Carlos.  However, and unsurprisingly, having left the accommodation at 6:00am and driven to the port we found that not only had the 7:00am ferry been cancelled but also the 10:00am.  The next available ferry was the 1:00pm but as the ferry from the previous night had also been cancelled there was already a large backlog of passengers and vehicles waiting, so it was highly unlikely we be able to fit on board the 1:00pm.  Besides, I'm not keen on travelling on ferries in the Philippines that have the potential for overloading.  The next ferry was at 5:00pm which would be too late to make it to Bacolod for the connecting ferry (or so we thought), and would have meant driving in darkness over the mountains, which is probably not recommended.

The Go-No Where Toledo Ferry

Not wanting to sit it out in dull Toledo with the vaguest of hopes that we'd make it onto the 1:00pm ferry, we decided to to take an alternative and somewhat lengthy route to the south of Cebu and make the crossing to Negros from there.  The advantages of this was that we would be moving, rather than sitting around and I'd get to see something/somewhere different.

The Managing Director of the Ferry Company
Considers What To Do About the Delays

To reach the port of Santander on the southern most tip of Cebu is a 90 miles dash.  I've done this route before when going to Sumilon (Island Life) so there was no point in dilly-dallying and we made good time.

Ferries linking Santander and Dumaguete on Negros (pronounced Duma-getty) are frequent enough and a short 40 minute trip.  The severe currents rushing through this narrowing of the seas between the two land masses were clearly evident from the rips and eddies that could be seen during the crossing and dragged the ferry into a arc of travel rather than a straight line.  During the short trip across I made friends with a couple of kids who wanted to know the English word for just about everything they could see, which was fun to start with but rather labourious as it dragged on to include the most obscure items.  As I was talking to them, insofar as you can communicate in different languages, my driver was taking photos and trying out his newly acquired lens.  It's a sad reflection of how bad things are in the UK as I considered that if a stranger was to take photos of someone else's kids there'd be a riot and accusations of paedophile banded about but in the Philippines this kind of paranoia doesn't seem to exist.

The Ferry To Dumagete

Once we landed on Negros we took the time to drive the 10 miles into Dumaguete to have a quick look at the city and to have lunch.  Dumaguete is the centre of local government for Negros and a centre of learning as the city is full of colleges and universities.  It sits on the coast with a scenic backdrop of mountains and extinct volcanoes.  Certainly, the place has a youthful feel to it as the students seemed to outnumber everyone else by a considerable number.  The city seems relatively organised and is clean.  The promenade along the sea front is lined with cafes and bars giving it a continental feel and is very well kept.  I found myself thinking that what this place needed was a chimney so I could spend several months acquainting myself with it. Although the likelihood of a chimney being built in Dumaguete are extremely remote as their power needs are provided by geothermal means.

The Sugar Cane Fields of Dumagete

Lunch was had in a pleasant sea-side restaurant followed by the 130 mile drive to Bacolod.  Negros is the centre for sugar cane farming and so alongside the road there were fields of sugar cane being harvested, planted or attended to in one way or another.  It was interesting to see that all the harvesting is done by hand, a reflection of the availability of extremely cheap labour.  The old system of railways used to transport the sugar cane was still in place but largely unused, and where they are used it's hand bogies rather than locomotives used to move the collected cane.  These days lorries stacked  with enormous loads are the preferred choice of transportation to the processing plants.

The Old Days of Hauling Sugar Cane

For the first time during a road crossing of Negros, Mt. Kanlaon was clear and not shrouded in cloud.  Now have a confirmed date to climb the volcano so a concerted effort to prepare myself for the climb is now under way, although at a tad under 8,040ft it can't be as difficult to climb as Mt. Kinabalu (13,435ft) or Mt. Rinjani (12,224ft).

Mt. Kanlaon Volcano

We reached Bacolod at 6:00pm thinking we were just in time for the 6:30pm ferry, but no.  Several cancellations at this port had left a backlog and the earliest ferry we could take was the 11:00pm so we drove around Bacolod to kill some time.  We eventually arrived back in Iloilo at 2:00am. 

The ferries really need sorting out.  From the myriad of tickets you have to buy to the insouciance and tardiness of the operating companies.  It must be strangling the life out of a country that is made up of 7107 islands and which depends heavily on the ferries both economically and socially.