Our day starts early. 2:35 am to be exact. This is what flying west does to us. Melatonin tonight!
Murray mentioned the Philippines Airline vouchers we got yesterday. We searched for an agent on Google Maps and found none, so we decide to go to the airport and see if the check in counter folks can help us use them. I checked the flight departures and there is a flight leaving at 7:20 am, so we know there will be staff there, and since we are up, might as well walk over there early. We are quite close to the airport and it only takes us about 10 minutes to get there. The security guard points us to an actual office for the airline, but unfortunately it doesn’t open till 7:00 and it is only 6:20.
We walk back to the hotel and have breakfast, for Murray French Toast and for me rice, sweet pork, a small chicken leg, watermelon and papaya. I am in heaven!
We troop back to the airport and are the agent’s first customers. We explain the situation and ask that we somehow use the vouchers to upgrade a subsequent flight we are taking. She searches and manages to upgrade our flight from Puerto Princes to Cebu to Comfort Class, which includes seats at the front of the airplane, a snack and airport lounge access. Great! At least we are getting something for our money rather than going home with it unspent. We are happy campers walking back to the hotel.
It is screaming hot here. Today it is 32 C, feels like 39 C. We do shortish jaunts out of the hotel and come back to cool off.
We hire a tricycle, a motorbike with a covered frame on it to carry a couple people on a small bench, to take us to the Immaculate Conception Cathedral. The cost of the ride is about $2.50 Cdn. The Spanish first celebrated on the site back in 1872 and there have been a number of rebuilds of the Neo-Gothic structure.
We walk back along the bay walk by the water. Lots of concrete, a few trees and not much shade. We turn away from the water and head back into the scrum of traffic and people, find a Jollibee for a quick lunch, wander through the local market and then back to the hotel.
Jollibee is a Filipino based restaurant. When the first Jollibee restaurant opened in Edmonton, there was a big fuss made and a huge line up outside the place early in the morning. I thought to myself, cool, an Asian restaurant for a good lunch spot. But I never did go there. Well, today we walk in expecting an Asian menu, but it is burgers, fried chicken and spaghetti. What!? I eat chicken and rice and Murray has a chicken burger and fries. And cheap! We ate for about $6 Cdn total. Not sure we will go back there again, but at least we can say we went to Jollibee!
The people here are super friendly. We get Hellos everywhere we go and people are always willing to answer questions about directions that we pose. It’s the local people we encounter that make travelling enjoyable.
One more outing today, to find a restaurant for supper and then the chore of trying to stay awake past 7:30 pm. We will see how that goes!