Mindoro Bikepackers Day One: Batangas City - Abra de Ilog - Sablayan

In preparation for the trip, I scanned a copy of the map of Mindoro from my Lonely Planet and uploaded it in my iPhone, just in case the GPS doesn't work.


This is us in the Batangas City Hall. We met at midnight, December 27, 2010. There were four of us - Domeng, Ed, Eric and myself. Actually, it was supposed to be six, but Atty. Percy and Joseph still had work to do. Since they were the stronger ones, the plan was they would follow the next day. Sadly, that didn't happen.



This is us waiting to board our ship bound for Abra de Ilog in Occidental Mindoro. The ride was free, courtesy of Atty. Percy. He knows the owners of the shipping line and called in for a favor. Sweet!


We thought we could get some sleep on the way to Abra de Ilog with each one of us gloriously occupying a bench, but there were a lot of passengers in the ship. We were able to secure two benches to ourselves and and get some sort of shuteye, but it wasn't what we wanted.


We arrived at Wawa at around five in the morning and there were no streetlights to Abra de Ilog. Good thing I required them to bring blinkers and headlamps, or else we would have no choice but to wait for sunrise. We passed by a bakery in town and had some pandesal and bonete before we pedaled to Mamburao.


We biked for about an hour and a half before we arrived in the town of Mamburao. Actually, this is just the city limits. The actual "Welcome" is a few kilometers more.


This is the true town marker. We stopped and posed for some pictures before we headed to town to get some breakfast.


This is the river we crossed before we headed to town. It's beautiful.


We had breakfast in a carinderia in Mamburao. We arrived early so the food was still hot. We had adobo, rice and fish.


The road between Sta. Cruz and Pag-asa was tough. It was all cemented but the headwinds were strong and the sun was just blaring down on us. We ran out of water. The "corner store" where we stopped only carries soda. We walked around and were lucky that there's this one store that sells a six-liter jug of Wilkins distilled water.


After having lunch at one of the carinderias in Pag-Asa, we went back on the saddle again. The cemented roads disappeared and was replaced by rough terrain. This is one of the many long bridges we crossed during the trip, and the view was spectacular!


After 123 kilometers, we reached the town of Sablayan. Our legs were hurting and our butts were hurting more, but I can't express the joy we felt when we saw this marker. We were ecstatic!



We stayed in Emily Hotel near the Sablayan Market in front of the river. It was listed down in my Lonely Planet guidebook. I wouldn't say that it was excellent, but because they had airconditioning, I'm a happy camper. They're cheap, too, at just P300 for a basic room with electric fan.



Read about the whole four-day adventure! Here are the links to the entries:
Day One: Batangas City - Abra de Ilog - Sablayan
Day Two: Sablayan - San Jose
Day Three: San Jose - Roxas
Day Four: Roxas - Calapan - Batangas City