today started the journey to zambales early at 7am. after coming to the end of north edsa highway, they headed north by the north luzon expressway. they passed by the province of bulakan and pangpanga. the scenery along the expressway opened up to wide skies, green fields, dark mountains and occasionally, streams and creeks and big area of swampy reservation. all these tranquilized the mind and soul, delighted the mood and exhilarated the spirit. the road condition was fairly good, it extended endlessly into the north as the van moved along over 100kph. they stopped over in the resting station and had breakfast. then they veered off to zambales by the subic-clark-tarlac expressway, in dau, angeles city.
they passed by subic and olongapo, and as planned they found the resort by the sea hotel and met up with mr alonso. after half an hour of due deligence pouring over the documents on the farm lots, they headed north to cabagang where the farm was. they passed thru barangays castellijos, san marcelino, san narciso, san felipe. along the way, they witnessed the scars left behind by mount pinatubo that blew up and spewed tons of ashes into the air and came down hard on the surrounding provinces as laha, burying lives, structures, plants and anything on its way, more than 19 years ago.
it was harvesting season, you could see fields lying almost bare with cut paddie stalks, farmers drying their harvest under the sun, along the thoroughfare, smog arising from burnt chaff in the bare paddie fiels, causing the surrouding hazy....
they reached the farm at 11.40am. the old care taker opened the fence to let their vehicles in. the path that led to the farm ran about 200m long, 20m wide. they were up the slope of a small hill.... and that's where the farm was. it was just a plain hill with tall grasses, bushes, undergrowth's and trees of various kinds. all the descriptions in the ad, of australian grass, mango trees, pathways across the farm, water sources were things of the past. apparently it had been neglected for quite sometime, wilderness had reclaimed all its share. after less than an hour, they made their exit. the cow was in their way. the caretaker had to take some effort to pull it away before the van could pass it.
instead of heading back to manila, they were led to botolan to view a seaside property owned by a texan.
this property had two houses, one main house, the other guest house, both single story, except the main house has a small attic. the property was right in front of the black-sand beach, facing the south china sea.
tim, the owner, and his family, a filipino wife and a son, planned to go back to u.s., so was in quite an urgent state to disposition the property, which he bought from a german 1 year ago. it's about US150k. very negotiable. but it's was quite a far-fetched idea for a normal city-guy to move himself away from the hustle-buzzle of things and seclude himself in this remote part of the world.
they got onto the road back to manila after 2pm..... hungry like never before but could not find any food joint along the way not after 30minutes of travel.....
before parted, mr alonso asked, "so what do you think of the farm, the beach house?"
he answered, "if we were to get the farm, it must be accorded pioneer status, ie we expect much more cheaply the selling price. to tend the place, you need pioneers, not simple a few people to clear away the bushes. as for the beach house, we are not yet ready to hermitise ourselves anytime sooner."
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