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Published: April 8th 2012
When we reached Ormoc, we spent most of our time on the road. There were few ongoing road constructions so we had to slow down. There were several holes bored on the road and we had to avoid them as much as possible with slow speeds. We got past that but the curvy roads came next. We passed twisted and steep roads before we got to the city. My cell phone has a GPS navigator and we never had to stop and ask around for directions. But using the navigator drains the battery quickly so there were times that we really had to stop to ask people for directions. We headed to Palo, Leyte to see and take pictures of the MacArthur Shrine. We stayed there for about 15 minutes and then went back to riding; this time we headed for the famous San Juanico Bridge. Truly, the San Juanico Bridge was a breathtaking sight. The bridge connects Leyte and Samar and covers a distance of 2.16 kilometers making it the longest bridge in the Philippines. I had only heard about it when I was in elementary school until that time; I finally got the chance to see and travel through
it. Of course taking a good shot of the bridge can be hard because you cannot really see the whole structure unless you take the shot from up above. At least we had some pretty decent pictures of the bridge.
Once we reached Samar, we drove all the way without stopping. Ivan had read forums before this trip and found travel tips to avoid any trouble along the way. As for Samar, many travelers advice not to make as much stops as possible because of the dangers of being held up by armed robbers. We heeded their advice and so we drove and drove without stopping. The only time we came to a halt was when it started to drizzle. We put on our raincoats because we can see that the sky was not clear; everything up ahead was gloomy. Good thing we put on our raincoats early on because as we continued about a few meters, the rain poured so hard. While we were on Samar, the rain kept pouring. At some areas, it was a bit sunny, and then a few meters ahead, there was rain. We continued traveling the steep and winding roads and that journey
felt so long. For one moment there, we thought we had taken a wrong turn because there were no road signs indicating the remaining distance for the next town. My cell phone died so I had no way of finding out the name of the next town or the distance we had to travel.Finally, we reached an area where there was a distance sign. We arrived in a town and it was still raining. We stopped at Jollibee to eat our late lunch because we were so darn, hungry.
After lunching, we were contemplating if we would pursue driving to reach the major city of Samar, which is Calbayog city, and we would stay the night there. It was already 3pm when we took our lunch and thought, it might be too late to drive further. However, we asked people before arriving to this town on how many hours it would take us to reach Calbayog. They said it would only take about an hour or two so we decided to continue amidst the rain.
Rain continued to pour and it was time for us to gas up. The next gas station was nowhere near, so we had
Photo 10
hot, sunny dayto stop at one of those mini stores that sell gas contained in used coke bottles. The moment we started to ride off again, lightning struck what seemed to be in front of us, but we knew it was from a distance. It made a loud and sharp cracking sound and it kind of blinded us. All of a sudden, Ivan
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