Miami 5:33 a.m., a nothing day, so what was I thinking about? Let's see. A trip down memory lane. Borocay Island. It was at Christmas time in the mid-19 80s. I was crashing at a hostel in Manila, eating a lot of ice cream. There was a shop selling English magazines just off the totally polluted Manila Bay. I found a Time magazine and this 6 foot 2 American (Pat) sees this and pulls up a chair, just glad to talk English again.
[Author's note: this American had not traveled much, and was staying in a relatively expensive hotel. I showed him how to book a room in what they call a pension for about one quarter the price. Still, Manila is a filthy little city full of hookers and drunken sailors. I basically led him to around to see what there was to do and kind of took pity because this really wasn't turning out to be any kind of a holiday for him. He'd been sold some kind of package back in the states.]
It is impossible to get anything done at Christmas time in a Catholic country, but I suggested we go down to the waterfront and see what's available. A Chinese agent in a tin booth said if we wanted to live in the ships hold, we could go to Borocay. So we paid him $42 each and got on this horrible steamer, registered for 300 with 400 people aboard. Right down in the hatches to the steerage down and down into the ship. We had no idea where Borocay was, but this was beginning of one of my greatest adventures.
As soon as we cleared the dock, the locals pushed all the bedsprings to the wall and started a dice game. We couldn't breathe, but we got a meal of fish and rice on a tin tray. I chose the tail; Pat took the head and ate the eyes first. Eating was done in relays, as soon as the tray was finished, it got rinsed off and passed back to the lineup. 20 trays for 200 people. We couldn't handle the heat and went up to the deck with the chickens. We bribed some men to trade places and slept on their deck cots.
The boat was so overloaded it sat tilted in the water with the “tung-tung-tung” of the motor felt in every piece of steel. We passed the rusted out wreck of Corregidor and kept sailing south. Soon we began stopping on little islands, mountains in the ocean really, with stilt docks and the whole local population turned out. We quickly discovered a naughty trick. Throw a coin overboard, and the kids would dive at in after it, coming up with their cheeks stuffed like squirrels, but full of American quarters.
Well, a little further away were the men in suits and ties. Silver dollars are more popular in the Philippines than in America. Toss one nearby these men, and watch them make a quick decision. Sure enough, into the drink suit and tie and all before it sank out of sight. Great sport!
[Author's note: Pat Pendergrast from Colorado, I think. Anyway, his idea of fun was to pack 100 pounds of gear up in the mountains and live off the land. He, maybe justifiably, considered me to be a very seasoned traveler. We spent Christmas on Borocay, one of the few places left in Paradise that wasn't full of crazy Australians. Pat took up with a 40-year-old Swedish murderess who owned the place’s only ice cream parlor. There was no electricity or cars allowed on the island.
The entire story of this episode would be a book in itself. I ate bananas deep-fried in brown sugar, captured a runaway pig that belong to the mayor, we were interrogated as CIA spies, we climbed on the roof of a stainless steel bus because we were choking on fumes of smoked coconut and took pictures of 8 inch long spiders used as wall decorations. I pulled Pat out of the ocean when he was stung by a box jellyfish. (No, not an Irakundji.)]
