See part 1 here.

Follow the leader
We followed the buses and watched for the directional signages. The problem is, I can't keep up with the buses. Everytime there's a forked road, one signage points to one direction that says "TO BAGUIO", while another points in the other direction that says "Alternate route to BAGUIO". Duh! We followed what is presumably the main route. But at Tarlac (at a Caltex Gas station), we were moving going straight ahead when we noticed that a good number of vehicles are taking a U-Turn. We paused for a while, took the U-turn and followed their lead. When I saw a bus behind us heading to Baguio, it was a sigh of relief. We're hading the right way.

Luisita Mall
It's already almost 4pm. When we saw the Luisita mall, there was much rejoicing. At last we can buy a toothbrush and brush our teeth. We grabbed some necesarry items at the grocery then went to the Jollibee Restroom to scrub our teeth and voila! I feel 10 ages younger. We took some pictures, grabbed some french fries, and soon we're back on the road.

Long and winding road
It was a long and winding road. There were heavy traffic intersections too at Tarlac and Pangasinan. I'm almost about to give up. I sent a text message to my miker buddies to confirm if they'll be staying overnight at Panggasinan. Unfortunately they are not. Which means I have to drive all the way to Baguio. It was now dark and overtaking, or even simply driving fast, is getting difficult. We've had one close call when a tricycle suddenly cut us on the road from the street shoulder. It seems he didn't see us coming and he just drove off without signalling from the street side. I had to take avoiding action and cut back quickly into our side of the road as the oncoming vehicles are fast approaching. After a long long drive, we've finally reached the Victory bus liner stop over before heading up the mountains. We stopped there for dinner and rest. Food was not so great. So if you go up north, stop for food somewhere else.

Baguio at last!
We moved on and stopped for gas at the first Shell Gas station. The we saw the signage "Baguio 45 mins". It was a releif for me as the long journey will soon be over. It was a lonely drive since it's already past 9pm and there were only a few vehicles on the road. It was quite and adventure taking on the twisty roads of Marcos Highway going up to Baguio. It was dark and my first time driving there. We had to rely on the signs to get an idea on how steep a curve is. There was one sign though that did no match the steepness of the curve. I had to turn the car so hard and it threw my passengers and things sideways. I'm happy when we have a vehicle on our tail. It improves the lighting on the road and we're not alone. But the he car was so underpowered too and a lot of vehicles have gone past us. When it was my time to overtake an even slower vehicle, I miscalculated the move and had to squeeze in between a Truck going down and a Bus going up. A few minutes later, we're at the heart of Baguio city. We were contemplating on sleeping in the car or getting a transient room for rent. We decided to look around and saw Microtel Inn. We checked out the rates. At 3,200 per room, we decided that were too cheap to stay in a rated hotel. We found one with a for rent sign but it seems Baguio is already asleep at past 10 pm. We decided to knock at one of the transient houses and was able to haggle a room for 400.00 pesos for the night. But no hot water bath in this one.

to be continued ... Baguio tour and the road back home.

/rom