Daily Report: Pool and Pollution

I was up nice and early today, started work at 7:00 a.m., and by noontime had put in what I considered a fair day of work. (I wish all days could go like that.)


The Gontinas Girls spending a day out
in the jungle swimming and eating.Today, Epril and I drove out to Jasaan to go to the Twin Hearts Pool Resort with Epril's family. (I invited Don from St. Louis to join us as well, and he rode out in a hired car.) I chose to go on a Monday because on Sundays in the summertime (now, that is), the pool resorts of Jasaan are just packed with hundreds of people.

As it was, even on a Monday, the place was nominally full, with almost all of the little bamboo huts taken. As per usual, the karaoke machine was on full blast. The nice thing about Twin Hearts though is that there are tons of massive boulders strewn throughout the site, and all you have to do is find a hut that is a little distant from the disco-volume karaoke machine (which, coincidentally and fortunately, is usually the hut that the Filipinos think is the poorest location) and you can enjoy a relatively (emphasis on relatively) quiet afternoon.


The bamboo huts, cool water,
and jungle setting make the
Twin Hearts Pool Resort an
awesome place to spend an
afternoon.After the pool, the family, myself and Epril, and Don went back to Epril's family's house and relaxed for a little while. Don and I took a walk around the village, followed as always by a throng of little giggling girls... future Cherry Blossom subscribers for sure.

After that, Don rode back to Cagayan in the taxi, and gave Susan and Ednil a ride, while I rode with Epril on the motorcycle. All 5 of us met up at Kinse Amigos for dinner.

When I got to Kinse Amigos, I felt just the tiniest bit light headed, and thought that I must be having a sugar crash or be really tired or something. We all ate some bar-be-que, and then I decided to go home and go straight to bed, thinking that I was coming down with a cold or something.

I climbed into bed at 8:00, and started coughing. I coughed until I finally fell asleep at midnight. I figured out what had happened when Epril cleaned off her face with her usual cotton-ball-alcohol and laughed when she saw all the soot on her face: I had spent 45 minutes driving to, and 45 minutes driving back from Jasaan in some of the most polluted air on the planet. When I arrived at Kinse Amigos, I must have been suffering from mild carbon monoxide poisoning.

It's really a shame because The Philippines is such a wonderful place to live, but if you are a person with respiratory problems, take this as fair warning: Bangkok and Pattaya are pure clean oxygen compared to Cagayan. I'm living up on my hill here for all except 6 or 8 hours each week, and somewhat distant from the pollution... but if you live down in that brown cloud (I can see it over the city from my house), it is the same as smoking a pack per day as far as I'm concerned.