Six Word Saturday: Last Lunch of the Fabulous Four

This is a picture of self with two of her oldest friends — Carla Pacis and Judy Benares — and a new friend — Mahla Sen. It was her last full day in Manila after a four-year absence. The four of us had gone on a day trip of Laguna Province, just a few days prior. The theme of the day was historic churches. The four of us squeezed into Judy’s car and visited the church at Majayjay (and the nearby Taytay Falls), founded by Juan de Salcedo in 1573 (he was 23; the grandfather he came to the Philippines with was dead, and Juan de Salcedo kept on with his sworn duty: the Christianization of Spain’s newest colony) and the church at Nagcarlan (almost as old).

It was a very very long day (we were stuck in a four-hour traffic jam on the way back). Anyhoo, we exchanged stories and came to the conclusion that we made a good “team.” We started drawing up plans for future trips — Kalempong, anyone? Or Simla? Next year, we resolved.

The following Wednesday, Mahla invited us all over for a fabulous Indian buffet — the picture was taken after said lunch. Self had to suck in her stomach. She hadn’t slept a wink the night before — she always gets last-day-before-flying-home jitters, surprised she was still upright. Note the AWP tote? It’s already one of her most-traveled totes.

Posting for Debbie’s Six Word Saturday.

One Word Sunday: Colourful

The theme of this week’s One Word Sunday (hosted by Debbie at Travel with Intent) is COLOURFUL.

Took this picture of votive candles a few days ago in the beautiful Liliw Cathedral. The Franciscans built the first church on this site in 1578. It has been built and re-built many times, but the current structure has a striking, red-brick facade.

The church is a quick day-trip from Manila:

Cee’s Flower of the Day: Container Gardening, Philippine Style

Today, self went to visit the site of the former Santa Fe Resorts, which was built by her grandfather in the 1930s, in Barangay Granada, a short distance from Bacolod City. It was the first-ever resort built in the central Philippines, and was in continuous operation until two years ago, when it was sold.

Her cousin Anabel managed to salvage a little collection of plants from the resort before it closed. Today, when self visited the site, she saw a row of discarded tires, now re-cycled into containers for growing carnations.

Posting for Cee’s Flower of the Day.

Buglas, A New Literary Journal from the Central Philippines, Inaugural Issue

All the writers are from two central Philippine islands: Negros (yes, that IS the name of one of the islands, thank you Spanish colonizers who named it after the locals, who were “Negros” — dark-skinned) and Siquijor.

Buglas was the pre-Spanish name for Negros.

It is edited by writers from the Dumaguete Writers Workshop.

Self’s story Dumaguete is in it, which renders her speechless. Just speechless!

Welcome from the Editors.

Submission Guidelines here.

Water, Water Everywhere (WWE) Challenge: The Mighty Pacific

Still reading Conquering the Pacific: An Unknown Mariner and the Final Great Voyage of the Age of Discovery, by Andrés Reséndez.

p. 174:

• On the morning of May 1, the San Jeronimo cleared the capacious bay of Acapulco and entered “the true sea that makes all others appear like rivers and puddles.” — Juan Martinez, soldier, 1 May 1566

For the WWE Challenge, a view of that same ocean, viewed several hundred miles north of Acapulco. Self took this picture last month on the Mendocino Headlands. It was a very cold day. A storm was approaching.

Still cannot get over the fact that leagues and leagues east, on the other side of that ocean, is self’s home country, the Philippines. There is nothing between self and the Philippines except WATER. Imagine crossing that expanse in the 16th century, at the mercy of currents and the vagaries of wind.

Many attempts were made to reach the Philippines after Magellan. Villalobos reached it but left immediately after. Miguel Lopez de Legazpi arrived in 1565 and stayed to become the Philippines’ first governor (Legazpi was pretty old, for an explorer: he was in his 50s. His nickname was El Adelantado)

Legazpi had his two grandsons with him, both teenagers. One, Felipe de Salcedo, 18, became captain of Legazpi’s flagship, the San Pedro, on the vuelta.

What an incredible feat. Truly. And such courage for an 18-year-old. They almost didn’t make it.

His younger brother, Juan de Salcedo, 17, stayed and made a home for himself in what is now the province of Vigan. His grandfather died a year after arrival in the Philippines, but Juan de Salcedo spent the rest of his life there, even bringing his widowed mother and his sister to the islands! (These Salcedo women must have been made of very stern stuff: the trans-Pacific crossing, in the sixteenth century, was no walk in the park)

Legazpi’s Flagship, the San Pedro

Of course the San Lucas made it to Navidad, in Nueva España, or we wouldn’t be reading a book about it today.

The second ship from the Legazpi expedition to make it back to Navidad was the commander’s flagship, the San Pedro. Legazpi himself had stayed behind in the Philippines. The San Pedro’s captain on the return voyage was Legazpi’s 18-year-old grandson, Felipe de Salcedo (Legazpi had another grandson, also a teenager, Juan de Salcedo, who remained behind in the Philippines. This boy ranged all over the Philippine archipelago, even leading a “starving” Spanish company of 40 into the mountain provinces. The boy was forced back by the Igorots).

Self cannot imagine an 18-year-old commanding a ship all the way across the Pacific! But command it he did, and it made its way back to Nueva España. He was lucky his pilot was Andres de Urdaneta, 57, probably the most renowned navigator of his day.

Stay tuned.

A Revolt on the San Lucas

When word about re-crossing the Pacific spread through the San Lucas, however, several crew members revolted. The San Lucas was a dispatch boat meant to explore coves and inlets in shallow waters, not a vessel intended for the vuelta. The plan all along had been to attempt the return aboard one of the two largest ships in the fleet, the San Pedro and the San Pablo, weighing four or five hundred tons and built at an outrageous cost for this very purpose.

Conquering the Pacific, p. 145

The Return, Vuelta

Are dear blog readers suffering from whiplash, yet? Self is back to reading Conquering the Pacific.

It is not enough to get to one’s destination, the more important leg is the return.

The San Lucas arrived first in the Philippines; it was also the first to leave, in late April. The commander of the San Lucas is quoted as saying, “I would rather die at sea in the service of His Majesty than among these Filipinos . . . and my determination was to complete the voyage or die in the attempt.”

While Doing the Wash

More unforeseen events occur.

On March 4, 1565, the San Lucas pulled up anchor and continued rounding the immense island of Mindanao . . . at an unspecified site, the voyagers found a good place to wash their clothes. An officer and two cabin boys were dispatched ashore with everyone’s dirty garments. The two servants had just started washing when they spotted several islanders closing in on them and thus had to run for their lives, abandoning a mountain of clothes that the voyagers would miss sorely when the weather turned extremely cold later in their adventure.

Conquering the Pacific, p. 131

The conquistadores have lost their clothes! Self doesn’t know whether to laugh or to cry.

Stay tuned.

The Unforeseen

Human nature is incalculable. Four of the twenty crew from the San Lucas (the first ship from the Legazpi expedition to reach the Philippines; they beat the commander by about a month) mutiny, steal a rowboat, several arquebuses, and — this is the real clincher — the only flint stone on the San Lucas, which was used not just for cooking but for lighting fires in general. As the commander later reflected, “without fire the Indians would gain the upper hand over us at any time they wanted.”

It therefore becomes vitally important to track down the four escapees.

“One evening, the men of the San Lucas spotted a campfire in the distance. The four runaways were boldly moving inward toward the closest” native settlement, “willing to take their chances with” a native they had just met.

WHAT? Why would they do that? Escape from their countrymen and hope the natives will help them? What’s in it for the natives? Talk about stupid.

The men giving chase from the ship are able to steal up to the mutineers’ campsite, and the lookout is shot (with “27 pellets” from an arquebus, from about a tree away). All four men are marched back to the ship (including the one who was shot; guess being shot with 27 pellets from an arquebus isn’t so bad!)

When they get to the ship, the commander finds himself in a real pickle: the San Lucas has a skeleton crew of 20. The punishment for mutiny is hanging. If the commander follows the letter of the law and hangs the four, he’ll only have a crew of 16.

Oh my goodness!

Stay tuned, dear blog readers. Stay tuned.