Homebase in Palawan

“So, who smuggled you here?” the Swiss guy asked. He’s been stranded in Palawan for about a year.

“The same guy who smuggled you here,” I said. We were talking of our common friend.

We were at the clubhouse, facing the vast, deep blue ocean, at around four in the morning. Frankly, I woke up at three and had to sneak in the kitchen for some food. I skipped dinner the night before and was just zonked in bed from the land and boat travel.

The island’s clubhouse. They serve some of Palawan’s best seafood cuisine.

And this guy Bruno, when I found him, he was semi-drunk, forehead on the table, one hand on a tall glass of rumcoke.

“Why you alone at this hour? Your friends left you?” I said.

“Nah,” he replied. “They all went to bed. I thought I’d wait for the sunrise.”

Our secret place, one of Palawan’s 1,800 islands.

“You almost broke my heart there,” I said. “The way you clung onto that drink, you looked like you lost everything.”

“Do you mind?” he said, pointing at the seat next to me. He walked over with his baby rumcoke and sat beside me.

He told me he was living the life of a big boss in Bonifacio Global City, handling his two companies, for about three years. And then the pandemic happened.

His company produced bags for travel and business and sold about 60,000 pieces monthly. When COVID arrived, he went bankrupt. I didn’t ask about his other company.

This is homebase for the time being.

“Don’t worry about it,” I said. “We almost lost our family business too. So many things changed, but things will shift back to where you’re supposed to be.”

For the next two hours we talked about his real estate project in Palawan. I supported him and told him that’s how our host grew their property portfolio, which includes this island.

I gave him tips on making it big in real estate in the Philippines, and how he should streamline the legal documents and paperwork. After all, my sister has been in the industry for more than a decade.

The island is off-grid and runs on solar power.

“It’s a lot of money, especially now when the prices are in a slump,” I said. “Many city folks are looking for properties to move into paradise.”

He mentioned he was creating the foundations of SEO on his website, and that his only problem was finding people he could trust.

We were relishing the power of AI to easily write trending long articles for search engines. So many things online were changing and we believed that, like money, anything can be good or evil depending on how you use it.

Plenty of water activities here. I want to see the leatherback turtles soon.

“I wish I could find people like you,” he said. “I love the energy when things are just freely flowing, you know?”

The horizon was beginning to glow, hinting the start of dawn, and I told him that we should start hiking to the cliff now or else we’ll miss the sunrise.

I told him to meet me at the foot of the stairs going to the top of the cliff. I went to my room to get my flashlight, and by the time we met at the stairs, he had a heavy speaker with him.

The beach assigned to me keeps a two-storey hideout behind the coconut trees.

“What the hell,” I said. “You gonna play music up there?”

“And why not?” he said. When we started hiking, he was unbalanced to one side because of the speaker. The thing probably weighed 10 pounds.

There were about 200 steps to get to the top of the cliff. The higher we got, the more I was reminded of a similar island cove and cliff feature in Indonesia.

The hike was so steep and we were so inadequately prepared that we had to stop once in a while to catch our breath.

“My thigh muscles hurt like a bitch,” I whined. I hadn’t climbed mountains since the pandemic. At least not this steep.

It’s only accessible by kayak, but we’ll create a path through the cliffs soon.

Bruno seemed stronger than me, even with the speaker he was carrying. By the time we reached the peak he set the speaker down and said, “I regret bringing that.”

I laughed. He surrendered on the platform and lay under the vanishing stars. The sun hasn’t come up yet. I marveled at how the site was a good place for sunrise yoga and sunset cocktails.

In due time, he was snoring.

“Hey, Bruno. Drunkboy,” I said, after some time. “Get up or you’ll miss the sunrise.”

I had to wake him up several times before he got back to reality. He almost forgot he’s on a cliff. I mean, he could easily fall off and get butchered by the spikes.

The horizon was starting to turn orange, and you just know that the sun was going to burst.

I’m teaching yoga here in 2024. Of course, there’s more. <3

“I have to go back down now,” I said to Bruno.

“Noooo,” he said. “You’re going to leave me here?”

“Yes, I’m suddenly craving for hot chocolate,” I said. “I need to have my hot chocolate.”

I almost forgot I spent most of my sunrises with hot chocolate. At that time, I couldn’t understand my craving.

“Why don’t you play your music,” I said, “and maybe have some time for yourself?”

The secret island at golden hour.

He frowned. Clouds were beginning to block the view.

“See now, you’ll have to wait for maybe one more hour for the sun to rise above those clouds.”

At breakfast, he showed me his sunrise pictures and the ocean view I missed. Regardless of the clouds, he enjoyed it.

“You lucky boy,” I said.

// 12 Dec 2023