Sunday April 28, 2013 Villa Toledo Hotel, Virac, Catanduanes I got back to Virac perhaps a bit quicker than I would have liked. I was interested in staying in a couple of places an extra night – places like San Vicente. However, I was a bit worried about my luggage…
Category: Catanduanes Bike Trip
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Cycling Catanduanes 10 – Epilogue and Return to Virac
I could have stayed at Pururan for another day quite easily, but there didn’t seem to be much point. There was nothing to do there if you weren’t going to surf. And though it was beautiful, it was no more beautiful than other places I’d been on Catanduanes and it…
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Cycling Catanduanes 9 – Hanging Out at Pururan Surf Beach
My last night in Gigmoto passed pleasantly enough. Domingo and his cousin ate their meal beside me on the dining room table and we all watched TV afterward. They were both quite amused by the Filipino sitcom playing. I guess it would be unfair to criticize a sitcom, but it…
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Cycling Catanduanes 8 – My Gigmoto Host Domingo Tatel
I did make it to Gigmoto and though I didn’t find the perfect lodging I was looking for – a nice bungalow on the beach with its own bathroom and water supply – I found something that in its way might be a lot better. It was certainly a lot…
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Cycling Catanduanes 7 – Good Cop/Bad Cop in Viga
I had been assured by many, many people that once I reached Bagamanoc my life of crashing and banging over rough and rocky roads would be over. It would be cement paving all the way from there to Virac, I was told. I should have known better than to trust…
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Cycling Catanduanes 6 – Trying to Say “Bagamanoc”
The following day was by far the hardest day of the circuit around Catanduanes – far harder than my ride from Pandan to San Vicente. It didn’t start out that terribly hard. I rode through some pleasant countryside and villages, occasionally climbing up some steep hills and bouncing and crashing…
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Cycling Catanduanes 5 – The Barangay Captain of San Vicente
San Vicente did not, as I suspected, have any kind of hotel or pension or inn or guest house or lodging. In that situation, I figured I would be sleeping in my tent and I understood from many conversations I’d had that I should present myself to the barangay captain…
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Cycling Catanduanes 4 – Journey to San Vicente
I had asked lots of people over the previous couple of days about the road going from Pandan and back to Virac along the east coast. From these people I got a variety of answers. Most said variants on the “too far” and “impossible” line. Others said that the entire…