Below are a few photos from my trip to Baguio/Manila on October 21 when my bus was delayed by landslide after landslide. I wish I would have had a real camera, but the cell phone snapshots are all I can offer.
This is the first stop we came to. In the fuzzy photo above you can see there is a truck stuck ahead of the bus I am in. It is a beer truck on its way out of town. (No free samples were offered - for those of you who may be wondering.) This slide is within sight of the place a landslide blocked our way back into Bontoc last year. What you can't see in the photo is that there is a utility pole that is keeping the truck from plummeting over the edge to the river below.
Next it was time for our driver to attempt getting the bus past the debris. At first we thought he would make it okay since they had moved things around for the truck to get through. But after the first attempt and seeing how close we were to trusting that same pole, I decided to wait outside of the bus for him to work his way over/through the mess. When I got out, a chain reaction began and most of the other passengers followed.
This is the first stop we came to. In the fuzzy photo above you can see there is a truck stuck ahead of the bus I am in. It is a beer truck on its way out of town. (No free samples were offered - for those of you who may be wondering.) This slide is within sight of the place a landslide blocked our way back into Bontoc last year. What you can't see in the photo is that there is a utility pole that is keeping the truck from plummeting over the edge to the river below.
Next it was time for our driver to attempt getting the bus past the debris. At first we thought he would make it okay since they had moved things around for the truck to get through. But after the first attempt and seeing how close we were to trusting that same pole, I decided to wait outside of the bus for him to work his way over/through the mess. When I got out, a chain reaction began and most of the other passengers followed.The driver did an incredible job and cleared that obstacle. Perhaps it was helpful to get everybody off of the bus.
This was the next landslide. In the above photo, you can see some industrious men gathering the rocks and loading their truck. I think this was a private endeavor, not a public road crew.
This was the next landslide. In the above photo, you can see some industrious men gathering the rocks and loading their truck. I think this was a private endeavor, not a public road crew.
Here you can see that although they were helpful, the men would not be clearing the road without some more horsepower. We waited for a loader to arrive. They cleared a path large enough for the bus to get through and we were on our way. When I returned a few days later, the pass was no larger.
There were two more slides. The first was so large a long line of traffic was formed on each side. Until that point I had not noticed that there was no oncoming traffic - it was all stopped there. Sorry, no photos available as there was no good angle to see the slide or the line of vehicles waiting for it to be cleared. The other slide was quite small and was only a few minutes' pause as they finished cleaning it up.
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