Surviving 21 hours of Roadtrip from Manila to Cagayan Valley + Patarkan Festival Year 4 at Anguib Beach, Sta. Ana, Philippines

I always find road trips amusingly fun but I guess I expected too much recently. I did agreed on this road trip for many reasons; first, the trip falls on a holiday; second, I would be able to visit provinces on the right side of North Luzon; Third, flight back would be via plane; and lastly, I’m looking forward of seeing the famous Boracay of the north called Anguib beach.

It was 4 years ago when Ropali Motorcycle started Patarkan Festival, the famous motorcycle festival held in Sta. Ana, Cagayan Valley, Philippines. “Partakan” which is an Ilocano word that means SPEED, suits every aspect of the festival. Partakan Festival is the first of its kind, a “ride and rock” themed festival for motorcycle riders, their friends, and families here in the Philippines. The best part of this is the event is FREE of charge and everyone is welcome.

#NognogWears: Memo (Top/Bottom) ; Paez (Espadrillas)

The 21-hour Journey to Patarkan Festival

Two ways routes, first coming from Manila the other coming from La Union.

Our journey started at the Ropali Building in Pasig City where our two teams meet. #TeamEarth composed of me, Ruth, Earth, Omar, Rhea and Jeff, while #TeamAz includes Azrael, Ted, Enzo, Nicole, Aci and Oscar. Along with the driver Kuya Leo and another participant (Popularly known as Beki Rider), we were challenge to fit everyone including our luggages inside a Toyota Grandia. Just imagine that situation with everyone inside with a very limited legroom for guys as tall as me on a road trip for 21 hours. And by the way I was sitting at the backseat. Urgh! Lol!

The long ride let us do eating, chatting and more sleeping.

Groupie at our second pit stop

The road trip was not just an ordinary ride but is also part of the competition; both teams along with the others who joined will compete for this moto-tourism challenge called Amazing Ride. The Amazing Ride is composed of 10 pit stops, located in different provinces from Manila to Sta. Ana. Tourism related challenge like visiting a famous falls to buying pasalubong like Tupig, are needed to accomplish to gain corresponding points in each pit stop.

We left Ropali Center in Pasig City at 2:30 AM and as expected, we encountered traffic along the way. All hopes were high when we left the place. Our first stop was at Malolos Ropali Center, Bulacan, next was in Cabanatuan, Nueva Ecija then Solano, Nueva Viscaya, Tugegarao, until we finally decided to just go with the ride and just finished the long road to Sta. Ana.

There isn’t much that happened along the road, in our heads we just wanted to get off of the car and lay in our beds. It was a long tiring ride, which we manage to get over with by just entertaining our selves. Our road conversations are mostly about travels, relationships, food, ghost stories and a lot of disappointments about what was happening that we converted into something laughable lol! In between road trips, we had local foods like Yema cake, Batil Patung and Pancit Cabagan, gasoline station stops and the epic Php 5 and Php 10 CR break. Which I actually did had. hahaha!

We left Manila dark and finally arrived in Sta. Ana still dark. The situation gets worst when we were having a hard time finding our way to the hotel. It was 11:30 p.m. when we arrived in the meet-up place. A staggering 21 hour journey to Manila to Cagayan Valley. And the disappointments didn’t stop there for our late dinner arrived an hour later. Too much for a whole day, we rested quarter before 1 am and decided to start the next day late.