no joking matter.

Hi everybody, sorry its been so long.

We are in an intrenet café in Manila, it’s the 2. of jan , on the way back from our trip to Siargao. Since Christmas some of you have been getting in touch enquiring about our wellbeing with all the wind that’s been blowing here lately… so, in passing, I just wanted to post this little text to say, we are safe, sound and actually all peachy after our holidays in wave-heaven (www.siargao.net) ..

The taifun, or taifunS were no joke though. We were very lucky not to have been in Baler when the really heavy rukkkkus went down. For all the scientific data go to www.typhoon2000.ph or directly to the satellite image, http://www.typhoon2000.ph/activeflash/stormloop.htm. where you’ll se a strangely beautiful spinning cloud that looks like when you let the water drain from your bathtub… and that’s pretty much how it felt on the ground too..

The first few smaller typhoons had been swooping past the Philippines closely and brought mainly a bit of strong wind and undescribable amounts of rain.. On the day of our departure from Baler, the town was already under 2-3 feet of water, nice brown water that carries all the rubbish and filth and drowned animals you want. We were riding in the projetcts 4x4 which is a rather highheeled vehicle, so, at the notice that the direct mountain route was unpassable, but the detour through the northern provinces is passable, we set of to get to Manila. The idea was to pick up our friends Rodrigo and Ainhoa, who were to touch down from Spain the next day and spend a quick two week surf-holiday with us. The rivers were high, but passable and we got to Manila quicktime thanks to the swiftness of a superior quality P drivathon. (in the course of this story we will actually learn that its very helpful to let air out of your trucks tyres if you are going off-road.., but as I think I might forget this detail by the time I reach the day we found out I thought I’d just mention it here… )

At arriving in manila, during our hearty but rain-drenched reunification with our friends from Barcelona (oh, by the way, further on you might see some nice philipino surf-photos here, but that is not to say there isn’t a wonderful session to be had in Barcelona too! Look!!: www.surfbcn.com ), Rodrigo’s face couldn’t hide the worry…. He’s an internet man after all, and in his studies of Baler as a holiday location, ha had already come across the issue of typhoons……..infact he had already been checking for the current situation, and was more alarmed than Ju and me together, because for us, by our short experience of living at the eastern side of southeast asia, a “TIFON” is a bit of storm and quite impressive rainfall for a while, but nothing to get to stressed about. Was his worry justified or was he just being alarmist? Will we survive? How will the trip back go down? What happenes is you drop 10000000000000000 lillions billions of water per square millimenter (or Phillimeter) on top of am underdeveloped country? Find out after we’ve had lunch… I am starving and Ju wants to leave… So …to be continued… Anyway w are fine, greetings… sorry for such a crap mailing….

Peace.

M