The next day, my last day in Matnog, was an odd sort of day. I spent the morning writing in my journal and drinking coffee and hanging out at the resort. This was not quite as relaxing and enjoyable as it sounds as the skin on my legs around my knees was so itchy and sore that I wanted to scream at times. Plus, I was still camping out in the carport and this, for some reason, was a favorite haunt of flies and hundreds of mosquitos. Nanong hadn’t quite gotten a system down for the resort yet, and there was a large pile of garbage out in the compound, which they added to each day. Dogs came and rooted through that and spread it around so there was garbage littered all over the place. This led to the large number of flies. Why there were so many mosquitoes, I don’t know. During the day, they didn’t seem to bite much, they just swarmed. But it was very annoying and distracting. Finally, this was still the hottest month of the year in the Philippines and it was hard to relax while baking in that heat.

At midday, I set off on foot with my camera along the road into Matnog. I had had a very enjoyable time with my wide angle lens on my island-hopping day, and I wanted to take some more pictures around Matnog.

Matnog still kept most of its charm hidden from me on day 3. The scenery was very interesting, especially around the rusty metal bridge. I took some pictures of some boys jumping from the bridge into the wide river below. I liked the black and white images the best. Downtown Matnog was just as frantic and unwelcoming as ever, but I stumbled across what I thought was a perfect eatery. It was a new and modern place with nice seating inside and a full selection of Filipino dishes on display. They also served coffee and other items, which they displayed on a nice menu. It was, in fact, more like a restaurant than an eatery, and I was overjoyed to find it. This was the place that could have served as my anchor and key for unlocking Matnog’s charm. Had I known about it before, then my food problems would have been solved. It would also have given me a place to sit in comfort and drink coffee and catch my breath out of the overwhelming noise and traffic.

The service was good and friendly and the food was very good. I was very happy. But then, I went to pay my bill and the dreaded “foreigner price” reared its ugly head once more. I had not asked about the price of the dishes beforehand. These eateries all charge roughly the same price for things like rice and chicken adobo. It’s never very much. But when I was ready to leave and approached the counter to pay, the woman quoted me a price that was three times what it should have been. She had it all written out on a pad of paper and showed it to me, each price inflated to a foreigner price. I told her that this foreigner price was not a good idea. I liked her restaurant and had already made plans to eat all of my meals there. But with this foreigner price, I simply wouldn’t come back again. She didn’t seem to care. I suppose there was a slim possibility that these prices were just their regular prices, but I didn’t think so. I had become quite familiar with what basic dishes cost and my meal should have come to about a third of what she charged me.

It was a little thing, and I should have been able to rise above such petty annoyances. “Should” have been able to, but I found I wasn’t and I walked away feeling quite annoyed. I found I had lost any interest in exploring Matnog and taking pictures and interacting with anyone. It was a petty and childish thing, but when things like this happened, I found myself wanting to blame someone, and I ended up blaming all Filipinos. I felt just a general anger with everyone, unreasonable as that was.

I walked through the market and then along the waterfront taking a few pictures as I went. I drew a lot of attention as usual and people called out to me constantly. I began ignoring the children completely as they called out “What you name?” “Where are you going?” They weren’t really asking those questions with any expectation of getting an answer, and I was in no mood to humor them. Shouting out those questions was the equivalent of a person in a zoo poking an animal with a stick just to make it move or do something interesting. Groups of men called out to me and waved me over to join them. I just waved back at them and indicated that I had to keep walking. These men were all drinking heavily, and I was also in no mood to hang out with drunks. The only thing worse than the usual interrogation was the usual interrogation coming from drunk men.

I had expected to be out exploring Matnog for several hours, but my mood had soured and I made my way back to the Richwell Beach Resort, where I needed to fix the flat tire on my bike. That promised to be a bit of an effort, and in that regard it didn’t disappoint.

I flipped over the bike and removed the rear wheel and then set about taking off the tire and pulling out the inner tube. When I did so, a strange thing happened: big handfuls of a dry black substance came pouring out. There were crumbs of it and long strips of it. At first, I thought the inner tube had completely turned to dust in the heat of the Philippines. Then I realized what it was. This black substance was the remains of a Mr. Tuffy kevlar liner. I had purchased this liner when I purchased the bike about fourteen years earlier. Its purpose is to protect the inner tube from punctures. It had failed to do its job with this nail in Matnog, and now I saw why. The Mr. Tuffy liner was not very “tuffy” anymore. It had turned to black dust. I was astonished. When I left from Taiwan, the liner appeared to still be in good condition. I saw no reason why it wouldn’t be. I didn’t think kevlar was the kind of substance to degrade. Apparently, I was wrong, and my cycling in the Philippines had completely destroyed it. There was nothing left of it and it fell out of the tire in big handfuls. Some had melded to the inside of the tire, but I could scrape it out with my fingers.

The nail had done a lot of damage. It had gone through the tire on one side and then out the other side and then as I wheeled the bike back to the resort, the nail must have gone through the tube a couple of more times. Luckily, the tube wasn’t shredded. It just had at least five holes in it, and it took a while for me to patch it up securely. While doing so, I discovered that tubes of patch glue I had with me were also completely degraded. I must have had them for a long time because when I punctured the seal and tried to squeeze out the glue, nothing came out. The glue had turned to a solid substance inside the container. I had to stop and reflect on what this meant. So far, many of my travel and cycling items had failed. All of these items were simply old and worn out. I didn’t realize how worn out they were. It worried me as I wondered what else was going to fail – maybe something much more important than a Mr. Tuffy liner and a tube of patch glue.

Luckily, I had newer patch kits and the glue in those kits was still useable. I kept finding new holes in the tube as I applied patches, but eventually, I thought I had gotten them all. Then I removed the front wheel. It had no punctures, but I figured the Mr. Tuffy liner would have degraded in the front as well, and I was right. It had also turned into this brittle black substance. Lesson for the future – even Kevlar has a lifespan. Things simply need to be replaced after certain intervals of time whether they look worn out or not. I was starting to think that I should have started from scratch with an entirely new set of gear, including the bicycle.

The evening went by in a now familiar routine of being frustrated by Matnog. It was dark by the time I had repaired the punctures in my tire and put my bike together. But I needed water for the night and the next day, so I got on my bike and rode into Matnog. Along the way, I noted that none of the eateries I’d used previously were open. That didn’t bode well for getting food, especially since I did not want to return to the “foreigner price” restaurant.

My water refilling station was also closed. I cycled around for a bit and found another one, but the woman there was not very helpful or friendly. She looked at me like I was some kind of annoying bug, and my Dromedary water bag did not appear to her as an amusing item to round out her day’s stories with but a stupid thing that she didn’t want to deal with. She told me that I would have to wait until her “boys” came back from a delivery. The boys came back twenty minutes later, and I finally got some water.

Matnog was in full swing that night. There was a festival going on. There was a live band playing and the streets were filled with people. At another time, I would have been happy to see that. But I was not feeling charitable toward Matnog. I simply wanted to find some food and then get out of the noise of the downtown area. Unfortunately, I could find no food and I cycled back to Richwell. I asked the women there if they could whip something up for me, and they provided me with some rice and a big bowl of “blood meat” for 50 pesos. It wasn’t a satisfying meal, but it did the job and I was glad to get it. The hunter/gatherer can’t be too picky if he wants to go to bed with a somewhat full stomach.

The night did not pass easily. As before, it remained extremely hot for many, many hours and I lay inside my tent sweating and sweating and sweating. On my trip to town, I had picked up a bottle of calamine lotion, and that at least gave me some relief from my itchy skin. By the time I finished applying it, I was pink from head to toe. It reminded me of my days of getting bad cases of poison ivy in Canada. I never found that calamine lotion was very effective, but it at least had a psychological effect. Whenever I felt overwhelmed by the itchiness and was one second away from tearing my skin open with my fingernails and screaming with relief, I’d apply the calamine lotion instead. Then my skin would be slippery and pink and not very scratchable. I felt like I hardly slept at all, but I must have in between the applications of the lotion.

I woke up in the morning emotionally if not physically ready to leave Matnog. I sat outside my tent for a little while drinking a cup of coffee and writing in my journal, but there were so many mosquitos and flies that I couldn’t stand it for very long. It was time to pack up the gear and see about taking the ferry. It was time to leave Luzon and head to the island province of Samar.

 

Tags: bike, eatery, job, Legazpi to Matnog, Philippines Bike Trip 2013, tent