Aklan

Quickly, I just want to talk about Aklan. As many of you know, and of course, my family knows this, with the exception of my Cebuano Grandma Conching, we are Aklanon. And until yesterday, I had never been here. This is the province where we can trace our roots back five generations. This town, Numancia, is where the bulk of my family is from, and where my father, grandmothers and grandfathers, and ancestors were born. Thousands of Aklanons live in the US.

When we landed on our Cebu Pacific flight in Kalibo, everyone cheered. Clapped, yelled, screamed. Everyone was so happy to be home; I had never experienced such elation on a landing amongst other passengers, and I was moved to tears. I was sad that my Tatay wasn't with us, sad that this is the trip I thought we would take together with my sister, but then felt as though he will be with us too, and felt the ancestors welcoming us home.

Aklan is a beautiful province, something out of a postcard, Jesse says: green rice fields endless into the horizon, carabaos, nipa huts, coconut trees, even lining the airport runway. Uncle David Villanueva welcomed us at the airport and brought us to the beautiful new Ureta house of our cousins 'To Willie and Mang Nellie Ureta. Manang Gerlie, 'To Willie's sister, stuffed us with cake and sodas and fruits, inihaw na baboy, crabs, beef nilaga, rice, paksiw na isda, sinegang...we knocked out on our ride to Caticlan, where we took a ferry to Boracay.

We're here in Boracay now, until Wed., then back to Numancia, where we'll probably go to the sabong derby, see the site where my family had their old house, and then onto Kalibo for the 796th Annual Ati-Atihan festival. Boracay isn't much to write home about -- Palawan is truly the last paradise -- but I'm having fun people watching all the tourists. Totally overdeveloped here. There is even an outdoor mall that's just like the International Market in Waikiki.

Also, for the cooks in our family: the tour guide in Cebu talked to me about real Cebuano pastries. It turns out that the real torta is actually very coarse and dry, made from coarse flour, lard and tuba, or rice wine. It's purpose is to keep your stomach full when you work in the fields all day. Binangkal is the same. They are little, hard as a rock golf balls. The torta in the country is like that -- so tough and tasting of lard and tuba I gagged. But the torta in downtown Cebu at Anita's Bakery is so good, and so like Grandma's, I wish I could have taken some home.

We had such a good time in Palawan we can't help but unfavorably compare Boracay. We made great friends in Palawan, Liezle and Donald, both Cebuano Filipino Canadians our age, and we had our meals together and went on bangka island hopping trips. Dolarog was a beautiful resort, so peaceful and intimate, only 10 others there, all Europeans. Imagine water so clear you can see 100 feet, so blue and green, and enormous limestone rocks jutting a mile into the sky, covered in forests where monkeys live. Our guide Ezeqiel was such a cool guy -- he took us snorkeling where there were walls of fish (i saw barracuda and eels!) and protected us. We got stung by a few jellyfish and a sea snake almost jumped out of the water to get me (terrifying fangs -- you never saw fat German tourists swim so fast to get out of the water, screaming SEA SNAKE!!!!)...but we survived.We four were the only Filipinos at the resort (everyone else, about 10 others, were Europeans), so the cook hooked us up with diniguan, rellenong talong, nilagang carne, alimasag, and extra rice! I know in 10 years Palawan will look like this mess, and we will be so sad. We were so scared on the bangka ride back to the airport: a storm hit and we thought we would capsize. It was the "Oh shit, why didn't we buy travel insurance before we left" and "God, I hope Auntie Virg keeps watering my plants if we die" moment. Liezle prayed the Hail Mary while I prayed to Bathala, but we made it, barely in time. The departures area was a mangrove river. We were dripping wet from head to toe when we got to the little airport, which is just two nipa hits and a small runway. Baggage claim is a wheelbarrow!

We'll post pics when we return to Manila on Monday. We're in an internet cafe here at our resort, Nigi, so we haven't downloaded pics. Anyway, just as an update: we haven't gotten sick, no mosquito bites to speak of, and we're having so much fun. We miss you all and wish you were all with us here. And as a correction to an earlier post, Jesse doesn't feel so American. And we're eating everything we can possibly get a hold of. Good and bad. We're eating Shakey's a lot! As well as liempo and chicken inasal (barbecue).