Click on image above for more photos.
After a 10 hour drive through winding roads, and possibly the worst stretch of highway that has been under construction since the ’90s (at least that is what I am told), we finally arrived atop Lignon Hill at 5:30AM on Tuesday, August 8. Mayon was just peeking out from behind a cloud cover and it would only be a few hours before it would be fully hidden from the prying lenses of the media. Alert level 4 was issued on Monday prompting forced evacuations of villages within the Mayon Volcano’s extended danger zone. Off we went to see the deserted villages and hopefully sneak a peek at Mayon and some lava flows. Unfortunately, the weather did not cooperate and we were all left wondering how to get past the cloud cover to get a peek at the volcano. We did get to go up to the lava wall that had been slowly creeping through the Bonga Gully and this is what a volcano outing looks like for the Philippine press corps.
Thankfully we arrived in Manila safely at around 7:30PM on Saturday evening after departing Legazpi at 6AM. An ABC 5 TV crew was not as lucky. After covering President Arroyo’s visit to Legazpi City on Saturday morning they headed back to Manila on the same stretch of road that we took. Somewhere in Pamplona, Camarines Sur their van was rammed into by a speeding passenger bus. I saw the video footage on the early morning news today. There is no way anyone could have survived that crash. Except for that stretch in Quirino (Andaya Highway) most of the roads, although one lane either way, are fine and well paved. However, safety issues abound with speeding passenger buses and cargo trucks whose handlers perceive themselves to be Formula One race car drivers. Worse, there is a perception with provincial drivers that turning off one’s headlights at night while driving will help conserve fuel.
