Where's Scott?

Whoops! Time’s been flying by on Malapascua, and Mabel points out that our visas have almost expired! We’re just about out of cash again anyway, and since we’re not sure if we’ll get our visas extended, we pack up everything and prepare for the long road trip to Cebu city. We leave early, and bid a quick farewell to the family and the beautiful beaches. The tiny boat glides easily over to Maya, so we avoid the soaking of our last trip. We grab an open-air bus for 4 plus hour journey to town. The road is very dusty, and the driver is insane – passing on narrow bends, slamming on the brakes so hard the pads burn, and reaching insane speeds on the straight-aways when the road’s flat enough (reaching what must have been 90mph at times, with palm trees and buildings close enough to touch on either side!). Amazingly, we arrive alive, and aim for the cashpoint and then head for the consulate. They’re just closing for lunch, and someone with a badge offers to get our visa extensions done for us and deliver our passports later for a small fee. Seb asks Mabel if we can trust the man (badge looks official enough), and hand over our precious docs when she says yes.

Outside, Seb and Mabel get into a heated argument over what “can we trust him” really means, and both of them get very upset – there’s clearly still some very big “lost in translation” issues between them, and sometimes they both agree when they really don’t have the same idea in mind. (“Don’t want some juice?” will be answered “Yes,” meaning she doesn’t want juice). Seb has the hang of some, but not all, of these language quirks, and I wonder if this means we’ll never see our passports again…

Once to our hotel, it’s clear we’re too far away to expect our passports to be delivered, so we pop back in the cab and head back to the consulate – luckily, the man is as good as his word, and we recover our precious docs with their visas extended.

We head over to “White Gold,” a multi-market that Mabel used to work in, and have a late lunch. Mabel earned only 150 pesos ($3) a day working here, and yet she smiles to be back on her old stomping ground. Seb heads to the toy area and loads up on massive amounts of toys and balloons; Mabel’s birthday is coming up, and with our visas in order, we plan on heading back to Malapascua so she can be with family for it. Gemma, Michelle and some of Mabel’s friends are going on a massive shopping trip in the dry goods area, and it’s clear we’ll be buried in groceries!

We head back to the hotel for an early night…