The Early Bus To Baguio
By Jude Polotan Barely seven in the morning, the Victory Liner bus jolts to a stop and the youngster-sized driver announces in an accent I can barely make out, “Five minutes!” Ken wakes and shifts in his seat. He laughs at the sight of me huddled beneath garments I retrieved from our bag and have draped about my shoulders and more than my legs. In the Philippines, they like their air-conditioning set at meat locker. “Stay here,” he says. “I’m going to use the bathroom.” I nod, teeth chattering. We’ve been underway two hours, obtaining boarded the bus just before dawn. In an try to distract me from both the early hour and the artificially-induced cold, Ken had purchased us a bag of macapuno donuts. Consider a Bavarian cream, then replace the sickly yellow custard with a naturally sweet, velvety glob of young coconut. “Nice try,” I teased, wiping a blot of the gooey elixir from my chin, but he knew I was looking forward to this trip practically as significantly as he was.