Touring Sibuyan

I just left the broken bike at the side of the road yesterday. This morning it’s back in front of the door. Comment: “It’s running!” I say “No, it’s broken, the engine keeps cutting out and eventually it won’t work at all. I don’t want to push it again!”. But the mucked-up ones remain firm. In the end, I get back on the battered two-wheeled flak. We head south on the west side of Sibuyan.

The concrete road soon ends. The gravel tracks lead through green jungle, with high mountains to the left and the blue sea to the right. The engine stutters again on the first steep incline. It cuts out on the next one. I just start shouting, loud and long. A Filipino comes running up. And helps me immediately. They have nothing and give everything, always.

This brown angel also first suspects that it’s stale petrol. I disagree. Nevertheless: pump out the tank. Water in the carburettor? No! The Yamaha is fully encased, it takes a long time to strip it down. I look at what I can. I notice a small hole in the hose directly behind the petrol filter. Air burns worse than petrol, doesn’t it? The honourable Afghanistan veteran cuts out the filter and bridges it with a piece of garden hose. That’s it. The bike is running perfectly again. After an hour we’re back on the raod.

We ride down to Sa Agoho, the “German village”. Tom makes us a good breakfast and gives us good tips for the route. Then it’s on to the southern tip of Sibuyan. Wherever we stop: good people. Some are heavily drunk – but all good. It’s a completely normal Sunday on an island in the remote heart of the Philippines. Laughing children wave and ask our names.

The high mountains send numerous rivers to the sea. We stop off in Catingas. An old dilapidated resort. An even more dilapidated diving platform. Jumping down from a height of almost ten metres into the cold, clear mountain river is much less exciting than climbing up the tower – but still too exciting for my fifth pair of sunglasses. My impact makes smoke signals in the water – half a jungle hangs in my old shoes, and the dust from the road in the rest of my clothes.

We have to leave in the early afternoon – Max is determined to climb one of the Philippines’ toughest mountains. The 40-kilometre return journey takes a good hour and a half if you heat up. I stay one night at Sa Agoho. My room is right on the beach. A bed in the centre of a circle of glass and marble. It’s called Sunset View. Correct, but I think Exhibitionists Heaven would be more appropriate. The first bed in which I prefer to sleep alone…