Wednesday, March 26, 2008 2 sleepless days in Vigan
IT WAS an all expense paid trip. All we needed to do was come at 8 a.m. that Saturday and meet at the Sto. Rosario Church Patio. No need to bring food or any other, just a pack of clothes for a two-day stay. The fare was also shouldered by the organization. The advice was only to bring our annoying selves and pocket money for side trip drinking and pasalubong.
It was a perfect weekend package and all we needed to do was come on time. But then again, following the adage of "being glamorously late" most of us, from a pack of 12, came at 5 p.m. Coming late is like breathing the air. This is what happens when the people your with in an organization are a bunch of self-proclaimed artists living in their own parallel worlds. Our 8 a.m. departure turned to 8 p.m. as friend Jelly and me were still running errands. But no one freaked out, burst into suicidal rage or twisted the necks of us who came extremely late, no, we are not savages, but the group has ways of getting even like annoying you along the trip or playing traumatizing jokes like leaving you on the bus if you fell asleep.
Nexus usually hosts summer retreats and semester break outings (not counting the whimsical trips that we organize on weekends) during which the younger novices are subject to the life of perks and leisure before undergoing the painful life of underlings to war mongering superiors like us. And the destination so far is Vigan in the Ilocos region.
Taking our bus ride in Dau, we began to horde on foodstuffs and began preparing ourselves for the trip. Half way along Pangasinan, we began to feel the length of the trip, stopping almost for five times after kilometric distances. Jelly and Van began ranting about how they hate long rides while the others slept to save themselves from the ranting.
We arrived at Vigan at 3 p.m. When we dismounted from the bus, we had to take a few minutes walk to access the Vigan Heritage village. The old Vigan is actually in close proximity with other more modern settlements sprouting along its boundaries that it is somehow hidden as we approached it from were the bus had stopped.
When we first saw Crisologo Street and the handsome row of Old Spanish Era houses, we began to rule out that there would be no sleeping for us, not until we have turned every corner of the village. It took us time before we found our hotel, not because we had terrible sense of direction, it was because the view was enough to get you out of your way. There was actually that terrible urge among the females to look for Filipiniana dresses and play Sisa at Crisologo Street (The same street filmed in movie Rizal by Viva Films). Our hotel was the glamorous Vigan Plaza Hotel, which was actually a century old edifice, which provided a magnificent view of the village and access to the famed Plaza Salcedo. From a part of the room that we had, there was also a view of the Bantay tower (the belfry that served as the backdrop for an old Panday movie).
After checking in, we trooped to Vigan Cathedral that fronts Plaza Salcedo and the Provincial Capitol (which is the usual arrangement for town centers in the Spanish time) for the early morning mass.
The mass, however, we did not fully understand because some of the songs and the priest's sermon were in Ilocano. After the mass, we began to chart the itinerary, scheduling the longer trips on the evening as it dawn on us from the conversation with the locals that there are a lot more to see than what was printed on the Vigan Tourism Brochure.
We took an hour ride on Kalesas and raided specialty shops along Crisologo. The town, as one friend puts it, "the place where time stood still" was waiting for us, tourists who were gawking on every old edifice and curious attraction. (To be continued)
For invites, comments, suggestions, violent reactions, hate-mails, indignant rebuttals and what-have-you, email the author at ianocampoflora@yahoo.com. (09275425466)
