Fording the Mighty Cagayan River

Magapit Suspension Bridge in Lallo, Cagayan, the only one of its kind in the Philippines is undergoing repairs (retrofitting, whatever that means). It has been closed since early yesterday morning. The Vigan-bound GMW bus I rode on at the Cabatuan, Isabela junction at 8:00 a.m. stopped on the road to Aparri and disgorged its passengers. We walked with our luggage including a laptop strung on our shoulders to a landing area at the bank of the mighty Cagayan river, billed as the longest in the country. A motorized banca has just landed and passengers carrying cartons, bags and other possessions were getting out of the boat and walking up the narrow path. With the digital camera, I took pictures of other passenger-laden boats coming and going away to the other side of the river.I was the 16th rider on the boat without the orange lifeguard. We crossed the river in five minutes, more or less. We piled on a tricycle--me, a couple with a one-month old baby in her crib and a mother and son going to Vigan--that took us, for P50, to a waiting GMW bus on the Cagayan-Ilocos road. It was early in the afternoon, the Cagayan sun was beating down hard, and I was perspiring all over and had to change shirt at one of the vacant back seats of the curtained air-conditioned bus.