I awoke tired the next day but not hungover. I heard Mark in the shower then went downstairs to begin banging on Dieter’s door to wake him up for the lapida. I once again strapped the 30 kilo granite slab onto my backpack and went to look for Nicknick who was up and ready to roll. A bit of fumbling through time and we were ready to cruise up the mountain. Mark asked me if I wanted any help and decided to be a stubborn mule and just charged up the mountain with the slab on my back without taking a pause. I got to the top exhausted and plopped down and waited for the two woozy boys to show up. At the top of the hill was Melot, Nicknick, Dieter, Mark, and myself, but we would soon find out that in the Filipino tradition of installing a lapida, the affected members aren’t to do anything and the others did all the work. Melot and Nicknick were absolute bosses, they dug a hole, opened a bag of concrete, mixed it with the dirt, added water, cut pieces of wood to make the mold, poured the concrete, smoothed it out, and made it elevated so that it would be easier to view for passersby. We sprinkled some of Jim’s ashes into the concrete underneath the lapida, and no words were said this time, which Mark agreed was easier and less emotional than last time. Rain came from nowhere and was only precipitating during the time we were doing the headstone, as soon as we finished, so did the rain.
We descended back down the mountain into the town, free of large blocks of granite, but the helpful heroes were still adorned with shovels and other tools for the plot. We went over to Keken’s house where Jim and Dieter first met, and we were served a feast of food, free of charge. Mark gave his hammock to Riemel and then we had to pack our things and sadly leave the magical island. We gathered for group photos and I gave out what stickers I had left, then we had to board our boat. As we backed away from the island and the people became small, then the island too shrank visually, I felt that sadness of leaving, knowing there was still more adventure to come, and I could tell Mark felt it too.
Emedel was our boat captain and Father Charlie joined us, and Mark was smart and put in an ear plug and I might still have hearing damage to this day from the motor of the boat that took us back to the island of Negros. We waved goodbye to Emedel and Father Charlie got us into his driver’s van to take us back to Dumaguete. There were two young girls in the back that were closer to monkeys than humans, who chewed on Mark’s backpack and were quite silly, and then we got to where the father wanted to eat. He wanted to go to a ramen place, but they were unfortunately closed, so he asked us if we liked Mexican food. We went to the new burrito place and I laughed that we came all the way to the Philippines and here we are at a burrito joint getting Mexican food. Everything was made with flour, including the tortilla chips, so I couldn’t partake in the burrito action with Father and Mark. The portions were American sized, and I had to take my food to go, and I was partially still full from the feast we had for lunch. Once our bellies were stuffed we got back into the van and was driven to the airport.
Security was a breeze as the airport is like the size of a Starbucks, and we had plenty of time until our flight. We boarded and flew back to terminal 3 in Manila, and then we tried to figure out a way to rent a car. I planned on having us take the bus up north in Luzon originally, but when our plane landed we had such a short amount of time to get across Metro Manila it was only going to be feasible to rent a car. Mark flexed his Hertz membership, toyed with the rental place, and had us get a ride to another office. The sound of drunken karaoke rattled the walls of the tiny office, and was concluded by the time we went out to photograph the car to make sure we got our deposit back upon return. We struggled to figure out how to use the toll road cards, and got lost getting back to Greg’s, but we made it, eventually. We were pretty tired but Greg told us traffic should be pretty calm the next day, so we didn’t have to leave at 4AM to avoid crawling cars, so we decided we could leave at 7 the next day.
Continue to the next page for additional photos from the day