WOW! Negros

Of course when you go on holiday the time comes when you have to return home. Bummer. Tuesday morning we packed up and took the boat back to Negros Island. We followed the Eastern coastline north before turning inward towards Bacolod. I love Negros Island! I think it is the most beautiful place. It's so re-energizing driving through it and reminding myself of how breath taking the earth is. Negros Island has it all! We pretty much covered most of the island on our trip. Our way from Bacolod to Siquijor is red and the route we took home is blue. The red is faster by about 45 minutes but the blue is way more breath taking! Also being able to take two different roads breaks the drives up a bit so they aren't so boring. SO, Negros Island. Here is a glimpse into the island we've spent the last 4 1/2 years on and all pictures I took on our way home from Siquijor.

Amazing rice terraces:

Spectacular views from the mountain tops:

Lost white sand beaches lurking along the coastline:

People using their livestocks with the vibrant greens int he background:

And of course piling as much as they can on their vehicles whether it be supplies or people:

I think one of the best parts of getting out of the city and into the mountains is the lack of people. Bacolod is about the size of Lethbridge but with 300% more people. It's so heavily populated there is always traffic, long lines at the grocery or when you just want to roll down the window and take a quick picture there is usually a head that pops up in the way. I love being away where it's quiet and peaceful, where I can quickly snap photo's like these without trying to dodge the crowds:

I love Canada. I really truly think it's the most beautiful place I've been with the clear oceans, Rocky Mountains, Shushwaps and golden fields. After being in the Philippines when we go home I'm in awe of Canada. BUT if I'm not going to be in Canada, being on Negros Island is a close second.

All In A Days Work

Around here it seems that the roads are always under repair. The long narrow road that leads to our house is slowly eroding away including the bridge. There is only one route home and the road is crap. Along with navigating like a race care driver around these huge potholes (which have just recently caused us a flat tire) you also have to fight with all the jeepneys parked on one side of the road while the drivers have their nap. This makes for a long, annoying one way road. I don't know too much about road construction but the guys that occasionally fill these massive potholes with dirt and stand there with their tin cup looking for a gratuity all day long aren't fixing anything. Another thing I don't understand ... cement? Why use cement? It's obviously not working here people so why not try pavement? There is one section of our Island that has used pavement for all it's roads and highways and it's a dream to drive on, so quiet and smooth and the road damage is so minimal. Maybe it's lack of equipment? Because they seem to do it all by hand including chipping away the old chunk of cement road so they can lay the new pad.
While we were driving home from Siquijor there was a section of the road that they were putting wire meshing along the aligning cliff to help keep the falling rocks off the road. Great idea. Lets use our wood scaffolding to get up high enough to lay the cement frame for the wire mesh. Looks extra safe to me!

Sugar is Sweet. The Work Is Not

I think that the crummiest job I have seen other then a Filipino garbage collector is a sugarcane harvester. These guys go out into the hot fields with their big machete's and long clothes and bend over all day long whacking at the thick hard sugarcane stalks to cut them down. There has got to be a zillion mosquito's in these fields and it would be impossible to wipe the sweat dripping from your brow with your hands dirty from work. So they work all day in the blistering sun in the humidity making roughly $2/day. The majority of sugar cane plantation owners pay less then the $4/day minimum wage for agricultural workers and they hire children which is illegal. Nothing screams to me the importance of education like driving by these guys working in the fields trying to feed their families. So they work chopping down the sugar cane and then load bundles of it up onto the truck that will then take the sugar cane to the sugar mill. This is by far the biggest export on our island, it's filled with the sugar cane fields which once made Bacolod one of the wealthiest cities in the Philippines! It's so sad that these harvesters are taken so much for granted while the owners gain so much. How is a country ever going to change when it's so corrupt?