Scott’s Philippines Timeline

This tunnel is well lit. Some tunnels are rabbit holes, some filled with pack rat vaults. Some tunnels are underground, dark and womb like, leading to gold and silver leprechaun caches. Some tunnels are constructed with giant boring machines, go under seas and through mountains to large impressive cities. Through some tunnels we enter this […]

There were trains for getting around before there were planes. You have to walk before you can fly. The first trains were big, lumbering, uncomfortable, dark, and were powered by men shoveling coal into fireboxes to heat water and using the created steam to turn gears and wheels. Train tracks were wide and it took […]

On this day, Gwen graduates from kindergarten at a local community center. It takes some urging to go on stage with her aunt April, but she walks on and is recognized.There are recitations by some of the kids, comments by teacher’s and invited guests, a small lunch afterwards.  We have no crystal balls to know […]

These two parakeets are new to the front porch. The two birds and cage were a thousand pesos, about $20.00. The two of them sing, preen, watch the world from their small enclosure.They are confined, but they are safe. Sitting below is one of Alma’s cats, looking up, calculating ways to reach them.He caught a […]

Each week, cock fights happen. Men of all ages bring their favorite fighting roosters to this stadium, pay a fee to enter, put their rooster and their reputation on the line. These battles are to the death, and, to ensure that, roosters have a finger long barbed metal spike attached to one of their legs […]

March is one of the dryer months on Marinduque but, even in March, it rains. This is a morning rain that lasts an hour, steady. Rain runs off the tin roof and puddles in the yard. After thirty minutes, soil turns to a mud you can’t shake off your shoes.  We stay indoors and wait. […]

Our Jeepney is loaded with twenty family members, kids, teens, babies, adults, inner tubes, coolers, pots of food, towels and swim gear. Today is a family pool party at the Villa Arcos in Santa Cruz, Marinduque. After we arrive and pay our entry fees, we tiptoe down steep stone stairs to two turquoise color pools, […]

Coconut trees make pretty pictures, but they make money too. On Marinduque, coconut trees grow up the sides and over mountains, in valleys and in flat areas that have been cleared of brush to make orchards, rows of the trees standing like sailors at morning muster, in a line, Irish pennants clipped and shoes spit […]

In Belize, karaoke machines appear in bars and hotel ballrooms with guests wearing Wal-Mart pineapple and palm tree short sleeved perma-press shirts. They sing into late hours and consume vast quantities of rum. In Mogpog, karaoke machines appear in people’s front yards, or living rooms, and friends and family wear Rock and Roll T shirts, […]

This old man farms seven days a week. He comes out early in the morning wearing flip flops, shorts, a long sleeved shirt and a baseball cap with a big brim.He has a machete in a sleeve on his belt and when he sees something that needs trimmed he pulls its long blade out. This […]

Buildings on Marinduque run the gamut from simple to complex. They can be as small as this tiny wood frame square box with a thatched roof, unscreened windows, padlocked front door, built off the ground, no air conditioning ,no electric, no plumbing. They can also be more modern with fancy windows, air conditioning, tiled bathrooms […]

  Whether it is fresh vegetables, noodles, fish, shrimp, pork, chicken, okra, green beans, squash, goat, rice, spaghetti and meat sauce, meat on a stick,eggs,coconut water or coconut, you are obliged here to eat more than you want. At birthday parties, or family get togethers, food and drink come from all directions – fastballs, curve […]

Many countries down the road after Uruguay,my first official travel adventure as a blogger, Scotttreks is still running into utility pole rat’s nests. There have been power outages here in the last two weeks but people go about life and power comes back when it is ready.  Poles in Mogpog are overloaded with electric lines.The […]

There are fires burning in Mogpog. They are kept simmering all day and into the night, started with the skins of coconuts peeled and shredded to make tinder, reinforced with dead coconut tree trunks, branches too small to be used for anything else. You see smoke as you stroll,smell it as you take a shortcut […]

Rice is a staple around much of the world. The rice plant grows about a foot high and then men with machetes separate the part of the plant with rice grains from the rest of the  plant. The rice grains are shaken from the leaves, gathered, then laid out in the sun on mats to […]

In a world of nearly eight billion people, and growing, we often have to wait our turn. On a Tokyo runway, our jet backs away from its boarding dock, follows air traffic control orders, gets in line with a string of jumbo jets to take off for Manilla. Thousands of planes land and take off […]

Airports are portals to the world. The Denver International Airport was built in cow pastures to the east of Denver, after Stapleton closed, and was turned into condos. To fly out of Denver you follow I-70 east till you see white sails in the country, shuttle parking lots, arrival and departure ramps, east and west […]