Hello Hive,
Last week, I shared with you our motorcycle cruise on the mountain back roads where I live. Our friend from Cebu French Riders lent us his motorbike and invited our daughter for a picnic so we could enjoy an adventurous bike ride date.
My weekends are Fridays and Saturdays. You might wonder why that is. I am currently working on a contractual basis as an interior designer for an architectural firm based in the Middle East.
For the last three months, my workdays varied from 8 to 14 hours a day with continuous online coordination in order to meet deadlines and project deliverables. It's a fast-paced job with a lot of multi-tasking. Moreover, with the 4-hour time difference in the Philippines, I'm all knackered and ready for bed when I log out by 10 to 11 pm.
Hence, my weekends are precious, and lately, nature immensely helps to recharge my batteries. To pick up where the story paused, here's what happened at the forest reserve.
In case you haven't read the first part of the weekend cruise, here it is:
Explore the South Cebu Mountain Roads on a Motorcycle (Part 1)
The Forest Reserve in Alcoy
Yohann and I were curious. We found a path covered with wet leaves and quickly strolled to check its hiking potential. Nope, there were no visible trails.
This was where our friends had a picnic. I wish to highlight that they cleaned up after they were done. Beautiful, isn't it? But look closely.
Why, oh why?
It was perplexing to imagine how other visitors or residents neglected to protect this area when we spotted the rubbish people had thrown in the wild. The trash extended down towards the slope.
It started to drizzle and my phone died at exactly the same time. We didn't have time to linger on the negative impact of spotting this unsightly surprise.
We quickly tucked my phone in the back compartment and drove away. I used 
Muttering disappointment as we sped away under our helmets, my husband and I agreed that the expansion of the road might even bring more trash.
We spotted the rain clouds closing in and we safely drove at a faster speed to avoid it. We dared to stop, even for several seconds. I couldn't resist taking a quick snapshot of this breathtaking landscape during the next ascent.
We watched the rain clouds glide towards us at an alarming rate. We hopped back on the bike and continued the journey to avoid it.
On the way, we spotted this ziggurat-like mound planted with corn and vast corn and vegetable fields that surrounded it.
From the other side of this mound, the ascent started and we found ourselves driving into the fog. For a tropical climate, it felt cold. There were silhouettes of pine trees which are rare and typically only found in colder areas of our country.
This was somewhere between the border of Alegria and Alcoy. Our gut tells us the view here might be spectacular on a sunny and clear day. It seemed to have been somewhere around Libo Hills and when I checked it on google, our intuition was correct. It's a jaw-dropping view of sprawling hills.
The rain poured and we had no raincoats. The rough road became slippery and we had to lift our legs whenever there was a muddy puddle. The thick fog engulfed the entire mountain and we started blurting out what would be nice to eat or drink in this weather.
I thought of a hot bowl of savory rice porridge or lugaw. My husband wanted a mug of hot chocolate. Ooh, a freshly brewed coffee!
We couldn't see anything. The mountain road was lined with ravines so we took it slow and we both got soaking wet.
When the rain proudly showed off how hard it could hit us. Each drop felt like needles on our skin, we found a small canopy where other motorists took shade. We stopped there.
As you can see, our motorcycle bike ride day went
My white t-shirt was soaked wet and I wrung it to expel the water. The rain didn't show any sign of slowing down so we decided to brave it. It was 4:30 pm and we didn't want to drive in the dark in this weather condition. We asked them how much longer it would take to reach the national highway. 20 more minutes of rough mountain road.
Alrighty then, we continued the journey. Brrr..it was freezing and we were relieved to see the PTT Gas Station at the corner of the national road as soon as we reached the main town of Alegria. That meant another hour's drive back to Moalboal on the highway.
Yohann drove to beat sundown without anticipating the effect of a fast motorcycle through an ankle-deep brown puddle.
As you can imagine, it felt like the entire barangay threw buckets of brown water at us.
I yelled back, "That's okay, I'm just glad I had my mouth closed!"
We giggled like children and laughed out loud. I had to close my mouth again as we crossed another puddle. Guess what, like I said in my previous post, this was one of my best weekends yet!
Thank you for reading.
