Dreams Really Do Come True!!!

We 3 Amber's defied all cultural and gender taboos this weekend when we fulfilled a lifelong dream of ours(a lifelong dream that developed about a month ago...) and rode on the back of a jeepney! As Amber Rae had mentioned before, she attempted such a ride and was told to come inside, because it was 'not proper'. But no one in their right mind could think that any of us would give up that easily, so this weekend, as we were in a different city on a different island we decided to give it another shot.

We were on another island because Ate Rhonda has many friends and connections there, so she thought it would be fun to go visit for a few days. There is an orphanage there, as well as a 'Transition House', which is where the kids from the orphanage live after they graduate highschool and are attending university.

So we arrived in the city of Cagayan after an overnight boat trip. We spent the day just relaxing and meeting the people at the T-House. We got along with them very well, which became evident as a very intense game of 'spoons' broke out, a bet being made that if one of the 3 girls playing were to lose, she would have to eat something weird, but if one of the guys lost, he would have to have makeup put on him in a public location. It was extremely close, but one of the guys did end up losing.

The next morning we woke up early and headed out for white water rafting!! It was on the way to the river with the rafts that we had our jeepney ride! Since it was not a public jeepney, the driver said we could hang off the back! It was probably one of the most memorable half hours of my life. The scenery was gorgeous and we could just relax with the wind whipping through our hair.

We arrived at the river and separated into our groups. We had the adventurous groups and the not quite so adventurous groups. Naturally all 3 of us were in adventurous groups. There were the traditional rafts, as well as 4 tubes attached together. Anna and I were in a raft, but Amber Rae was in a tube.

Now this rafting company was a little different than most in that they actually allow you to purposely flip the rafts. They feel secure in the abilities of their guides and know that it's so much more fun this way! They also informed us that the record number of flips in one trip was 8, so we decided to go for the record. Unfortunately we only got 6, but that was okay anyways. Personally I fell out a grand total of 11 times, so that was good enough for me. All in all it was an EPIC adventure, definitely worth it! Ooh and on the way back we rode on top of the jeepney on top of the rafts that were up there. And then, of course, we did not forget about the card bet and the makeup and had a very swell time decorating Sherwin's face with bright red lipstick.

We really enjoyed our time in Cagayan, and hope to go back sometime!

Sorry about such a long post! There's so much more I could write about but don't want to bore you to death! Hope you read it anyways!!

So long,

Amberlea