Seeing the teams early in the morning, we started to doubt ourselves. There were individual corporate sponsors? Yes, there were! My brother and I were raising our eyebrows, but we said, “well okay, we’re underdogs, then.” But we were in for more surprises.
It was clear, during the morning briefing - after being treated to a very unassuming breakfast in styros - that this was not a car race; that you would not be judged by your car’s speed (where we at an obvious disadvantage, having a mere family sedan). The other competitors brought 4x4s and AUVs.
At the sound of the gun, we were told, the race officially starts. The first task was fairly easy: search the nearby stores (most of them the event’s sponsors) for a certain clue, if I remember it correctly. (Gee, give me a break here it happened almost a year ago!) Upon getting that clue, we would know what to do and where to go next. My brother was G-R-E-A-T. Why? He simply took off like the wind; and I was the one going the gym and having weekly basketball stints! I look behind my shoulder and we were already at a disagreement on which way to go. I don’t know, but I guess I trusted his hunch and went with him south of the starting line to a fairly wide road off the plaza of Iba. Teams were hustling and looking for hints on which stores have the clues. I was winded, but was still running. I bet the excitement took over me, because I wasn’t normally that easily tired. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw my brother running to me: “I got it!” he exclaimed. It wasn’t too late then, it appears as though we're at least on the top seven of the first teams to have found the clue.
The clue led us to drive to a nearby town to get some bagnet, the famed Ilocano treat that’s almost like the Tagalog’s Crispy Pata. Only, I think, bagnets are dried up in the sun? (I’m really not too sure about that though. Could just be a myth of sorts) We had to drive to the next town that had this delicacy, and we had to find it in the palengke stalls! This is starting to get to me and my brother (he’s Mark, a.k.a. “Eco”, by the way) – the good way: we’re starting to get hyped by the “Amazing Race” feel. So is it going to be like that?
Getting to the town that had bagnet was really a breeze, of course there were mandatory brushes with other competitors, on and off road. Some were overtaking others as it started to become more of a car race this early: people boasting their engines.
It was a bit of a spoonfeed when we sa uniformed guys almost ushering - wait, really ushering - us to where we were supposed to go. But heck, we thought, this isn't really the Amazing Race. Eco decided to jump out of the car and try to find it as I parked the car politely. Again, Eco breezed out like a real reality show race specialist! I went after him only to find out that it should really be a piece of cake. All the people were leading us into the ally where all the stalls with bagnets are. They even made a man-way for us! I was not even in the market for a minute when I saw Eco running back at me holding up the bagnet he got. He had to pay about P120 (if I remember it right) for it though. There goes some of our pocket money!
We rushed to get to the next spot. It told us to get to San Antonio. And damn, did I think we had an advantage there! I was like "Dude, believe me I know the place," and hell, was I wrong.
This is the part where we get to island hop to the famous islands of Camara and Capones, off Pundakit beach. Getting to the resort where we're supposed to ride a boat to the islands, I started getting my panicky, paranoid me: I didn't know if we were supposed to bring along the bagnet. I mean, what if they asked us to camp there and eat the bagnet? Should we leave our things? Our bags? We really didn't know. We ended up giving a lot of headway to the other teams as about seven passed us by while we were planning, thinking of which things to bring. I think this is one of the parts where we just lost it - big time.
(end of The Race - part 1)
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