NLEX Lakbay Norte 5: Temporary Goodbyes, Lone Sunsets, and Rediscoveries

There was suffocating unease as I inched further away from the gate. The night prior, Lia, who had the vaguest concept of the span of days, agreed to send me away to a six-day work trip, smiling as she says, “Bring home Playdoh” — the same way she does every day.

I wondered how long that smile would last once she TRULY realizes that I will not be around to put her to bed for the night and greet her first thing in the morning every day.

Six days. Six long days.

For the first time in nearly four years, I was leaving my daughter for over 15 hours. I had several twists and turns in bed nightly for a week. Somehow, a part of me felt as if I was abandoning her.

During the early hours of 5-6 am, she would search for familiar flesh, eyes shut and half-asleep. I cup her in my arms as she nurses, her tiny fingers wrapped firmly around my girth. The most ant-like of movements awoke her, so I relinquish the opportunity to pee or catch up on dire articles so she could have three more hours of uninterrupted sleep.

From the window of the bedroom, I watched black turn to violets and deep oranges till she rises.

Today, I glimpsed into both sunrise and sunset without her, the latter while seated among fellow travelers on San Juan’s shores, beer and bonfire afront.

Today, I learn to live life without the usual insanity-driving noise and clutter.

Today, as Gay said mother to mother, you live for yourself.

It’s a rare freedom, all this, like those times I was still unattached, childless and overtly spirited. Sometimes, amid piles of dirty dishes, soiled nappies and assignments, I desired it. Yet tonight, as the night swallows everything in its deep dark belly, I miss the small, familiar arms clutching my dense bones so badly I almost cried.

I was among 24 individuals who were sent for the six-day NLEX Lakbay Norte 5 media familiarization tour, an explorative jaunt to Northern Luzon provinces.

Every year, the North Philippines Visitor’s Bureau (NPVB) and the North Luzon Expressway (NLEX), along with sponsors Petron and Victory Liner, provincial tourism boards, and host hotels, restaurants, and bars gather media participants – from TV, broadsheet, magazines, and blogs – to experience lesser-known destinations and culinary gems in the north. It’s an advocacy to boost tourism above all. To help build jobs, help build lives.

Balingasay river cruise, Bolinao, Pangasinan. Photo by Martin San Diego.

Past participants were taken to Cagayan, Tarlac, Quirino, and Zambales, among a host of other provinces. This year, they sent us off to La Union and Pangasinan.

An animated Victory Liner-sponsored bus served as our second home for the next three days. Every day, our community of writers and photojournalists spent 15 hours discovering the twin provinces’ most coveted and less traveled, our secrets bared in the sea.

At 6 am, we eat express, haul our bags to the bus, tread the off-beat, and immerse in town cultures. We’ve made it from the bar crawl and surfer experience in San Juan to San Fernando’s serene coast to Dagupan’s alamang-laced meals and river cruise to Bolinao’s larger-than-life sunsets.

Before the day ends, we pack again, check out, then check in another hotel. The routine repeats itself day in and day out.

There has never been a more dizzying, more adventure-packed itinerary in my life. My head is still heady with images (and beer) two nights after. There were many firsts. A first surf. First topload ride. First cliff ~~planking~~ diving. First ATV ride.

Topload ride to Tangadan Falls. Photo by Martin San Diego.

And then there were things I never thought I would do. I ziplined – squeamish, acrophobic me – 200 feet above ground, with forested trails and Mt. Balungao in full view. I laughed and shared secrets with people I won’t even share my email password with till 3:30 AM over beer and a game of “I’ve Never”. Even with the decade-wide age gap, it feels like we’ve forever been solemates.

There are many memories. Many cheery and lasting, like sunset in a glass of spirit. Or the salty scent of the ocean after a month in a lifeless cubicle. There are so many, I don’t even know where to begin.

Tangadan Falls, San Gabriel, La Union. Photo by Martin San Diego.

So I begin and end by saying that those six days are among the most memorable I’ve had this first month of 2016 – and perhaps for the remainder of it.

Lakbay Norte has been a revelation. Like all life-changing decisions, I was initially worried about putting a foot into the water. I doubted that Lia could make it sane; that I could make it sane. Our journeys have always been intertwined from blood cord to every day after the doctor clipped it.

But as the nights and days crawled their way in, that once-unnerving anxiety was shaped into something extraordinary. Phone calls went from tread carefully to blithe and breezy. Goodbyes were shorter, even pleasant.

She has never been so zealous about spending sleepovers away from home and freer from anxiety that I was out of sight for long.

Even with sleep so infinitesimal, I craved the light that the days ahead carried. Still, weightless, alive, and awake.

Friends and sunsets. Lingayen Gulf, Pangasinan. Photo by Martin San Diego.

I let go of the fear. So did she. Everything else followed.

Both of us, we’ve changed. The blood cord was still there, intact and sustaining, and we just learned to trust that it won’t break even when the last rays of the sun have fleeted.

The Lakbay Norte tour was made for us to rediscover the north. At the tail end, we rediscovered more than just spots on the tourist map. Rediscovered maps to ourselves, to strangers, and to strange but magical roads.

Last party. Dragged our arses to bed at 3:30am, woke up at 8am. Photo by Martin San Diego.

We rediscovered that sometimes we need to live among strangers to learn about faith and happiness outside our comfort zone. To keep our head up high in the world. So that, like today, we return filled with light, more enduring, and more open, to the place most vaunted, most trodden, and most loved: home.