I just discovered Corregidor

Oh God, I feel so exhausted. Right after I ate some dinner upon coming home, I downloaded some songs and then fell asleep because the download took so long. I only woke up just to burn my CD and when it’s done I am going to drop. Oh it’s done, forget it, I’m just going to finish this and then go to sleep.

I barely had four hours of sleep last night, and 5:45 a.m. came all too soon. My friend Gladys told me to be at the harbor at 7 and so I quickly showered, changed and threw some stuff in my backpack. I had no time to eat breakfast because I thought Gladys meant that the boat would be leaving at 7,. But when I got there I learned that the boat was leaving at 8 and it was just too late to go out and get myself some food. Fortunately my friends brought some chips with them. Although it wasn’t exactly what I had in mind, I forced myself to eat some lest I faint with hunger and ruin the entire day. Not eating breakfast was a pretty big mistake.

I expected to be riding on a boat that had a deck on it. I always imagined myself leaning over the rails, breathing in the salty smell of the sea and keeping a wary eye out for sharks. I was very disappointed when I saw that the boat we’d be riding had no deck; in fact it looked a lot like an airplane inside. But at least I had a window seat, which made things a little interesting. During the ride to Corregidor I stared outside and watched the skyline of Manila get smaller and smaller. We passed by the Manila Yacht Club and I promised myself that when I become a best-selling author, the first thing I will buy myself is a yacht. I do not know the first thing about driving a boat but I will buy a yacht.

We arrived at Corregidor at around 9 a.m. and I was pleased to see that the buses that would take us around the island were actually cable cars like the ones in San Francisco. Our tour guide, Ramon, is a 66 year old guy who reminded me a lot of my grandpa because the way he spoke and because he knew a lot about history. He even looks like my grandpa a little, except Ramon’s face is narrower and his skin is fairer. The tour was three hours long and if you aren’t interested in history then it would probably sound like a boring field trip to you. We had to go down from the cable car thingies quite frequently with the sun mercilessly beating down on us and was so hot. Ramon told us not to complain about the heat because the Filipino and American soldiers who were caught by the Japanese had to stay under the heat too and they didn’t complain. Unfortunately I am more of a delicate princess than a soldier with high endurance. Besides, I believe in expressing myself at all times. So I muttered discreet complaints about how hot it was and that I was starving. We took heaps of pictures too, most of them with all these huge guns. Although I did my best to smile and look nice, I bet I look really tired, sweaty and hungry in each and every one of them.

Lunch finally, finally came at 12:30 in the beach resort (it wasn’t a Holiday Inn after all) and it sucked. For the price we paid (200 pesos) we got very little food. I remembered the lunch we had after our Spanish finals two weeks ago at Chef D’Angelo. I think I paid about 100 bucks for my meal but it was so delicious and the chicken slice was so huge I couldn’t finish it all. Oh well, nothing I could do about that now. We spent our last hour in Corregidor wading in the rocky beach and picking up some pretty stones to take home with us. The water felt so good on my feet and it took all of my will power not to dive in the water. I felt kind of cheated when we were picked up from the hotel at 2:30. We wanted to explore the island some more and take the last boat at 5 but the ferry company didn’t allow that. Weariness finally set in on me and I slept during the ride back home.

I predict that my legs will feel very sore tomorrow since they are very lazy legs that are unaccustomed to long walks under the sun.