Tuesday, January 08, 2008
Mother of all disasters
Brought my notebook to PC doctor in Greenbelt and I am notebook-less for the next five days… or the whole month if they need to order some new parts in the US. That sucks.
I was in the middle of planning the itinerary of the Cagayan de Oro trip and I had five word windows open when the monitor became a blank screen. I rebooted for several times before I finally gave up and accepted the fact that it needs a trip to a PC hospital.
Boo computer malfunction!
***The notebook disaster could not come in a worst time because I’m currently obsessing about my trip to CDO with Pat. We’ll be turning one on February 1 and we’ll be celebrating it while white water rafting and holding on for dear life in a zipline.
I’m trying to do our trip backpacking style so I am doing my best to budget everything. I remember when I first went to Camiguin and blew out 15K for whole trip. In retrospect, I thought it was just plain waste of money because I was pretty sure I could’ve gotten the whole thing cheaper if we did not hire a travel agent and planned the whole thing ourselves. Charging that to experience.
For this trip, my goal is to spend within my budget of 6-7K each, inclusive of the airfare. I think we can do it since everything is cheap down there in CDO. Especially in February when it’s off peak season.
There are budget hostels in CDO which you can get for P700/night but I tried negotiating with a better hotel by writing to them in advance. I say “better” in terms of the general ambiance and facilities. While we’re on a budget, my idea of a vacation does not include spending a night with cockroaches and impersonal white walls and white sheets.
I got a reply at once and they gave me a P1,600 room for P1,000! The ironic thing about is, is that the hotel offered their taxi services for P900! That was a howler. Why in the world would they think I’d be interested in an exorbitant taxi fare when I wrote to them specifically to get a room in a discounted rate? I will never know. Good thing there are sites like virtualtourist.com that told me that a taxi from the airport only costs P200.
The white water rafting adventure posed another problem for me because most of the outfitters I wrote to wanted a minimum of four people before they book us. And that if we insist to go on with the trip, we’d have to pay for P3,000 each, instead of the usual P1,500 per head. One also asked additional P150 for the transfer to Macahambus Park, and another P300 for the zipline and skybridge.
I almost gave up on the white water rafting and was about to settle for just the zipline when the ever popular Dan Kaamino of Kagay replied in a text and e-mail that told me that he can accommodate Pat and I for the whole white water rafting, zipline and skybridge and lunch package for P1,000!
There, I just broke down my haggling prowess in my blog.
***I had a picnic with Tere and Mela yesterday at the Rizal Park. Yes, that park in Luneta.
It was so fun because Tere brought pancakes with blueberry toppings and hash browns. She also brought a blanket where we all sat down and ate our breakfast.
Wala lang. I just thought that having Pat around me all the time is great, but sometimes, it’s also fun to spend the day with just my friends.
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