The Adventures of Go-Girl and La-Z-Boy

Editor’s Note: When Ford Group Philippines sent us an invite to experience Cagayan de Oro and Camiguin Island in the rough and tumble Built-Ford-Tough way, we decided to send a slew of correspondents to get a different angle on the entire event. In the following piece, two of them, specifically our motoring writer Lester Dizon and our always active Kids Only editor Ayvi Nicolas, take two different routes to the event and come up with one unique story in the end. Their adventures, intertwined with the use and abuse of the Ford vehicles made available to them, are chronicled in the following exchange. For what it’s worth, I wash my hands clean from any gender-related acts of violence that may emanate from your reading of this article. Enjoy...

Lester: After riding a motorcycle from Aparri in Northern Luzon to Saranggani in Southern Mindanao and a whirlwind tour of Nagoya, Kyoto and Tokyo in Japan last May, the wanderlust under my feet decided to take a short vacation. However, when the friendly people of Ford Group Philippines called on us to join them for a three-day expedition of Cagayan de Oro and Camiguin Island last June 28 to 30 using their Built-Ford-Tough range of SUVs — the Escape, Everest, Explorer and Expedition — I just couldn’t say no. Wanderlust got a sudden recall order.

Ayvi: When STAR Motoring Editor Dong Magsajo mentioned something about not making it to a Ford event that involved white water rafting, rapelling and big, fast vehicles, I was just too happy to offer to sub. Time for a break from playing with my Hot Wheels playsets and watching A1 on TV, this was a chance for the real deal.

Lester: At the airport, we loaded our stuff into our respective assigned vehicles, ours being a spanking new blue Ford Ranger XLT 4X4 I shared with fellow STAR columnist Andy Leuterio, AvantGarde editor-in-chief Alvin Uy and Ford Philippines’ Dada Cayabyab.

Ayvi: While I got on a Ford Escape with the words "The Great Outdoor Escape" emblazoned on the side, I was telling Auto Review’s Ron delos Reyes it was a sign, as if the Ford women are truly clairvoyant. This motoring coverage is really an escape for me — an escape from the office and tons of work.

Lester: When our convoy of eight Ford SUVs drove out of the Cagayan de Oro airport and turned right instead of left, I knew we were heading to adventure. We barely warmed the Ford Ranger seats and were just beginning to enjoy its soft-for-a-truck ride and cool aircon system when we had to go down at the Macahambus Adventure Park. "Oh, no", I thought to myself while examining my darkened complexion, "Not another activity under the scorching sun!"

Ayvi: Scorching sun?! It was a canopy walk to the…

Lester: Anyway, Macahambus is a hill where Filipinos fought courageously in a battle during the Phil-Am Wars. Not so long ago, a group of adventurers discovered a deep sinkhole in the hill, attached some rope bridges, zip line slides and rapel lines and made it into an Adventure Park. It looked pretty exciting and all but my sense of adventure kept saying "been there, done that". Besides, the native lunch looked more inviting.

Ayvi: Well, I haven’t done the Macahambus zipline so I definitely had to do that. If there’s one thing I learned from all my other trips, it is to how to trust the equipment. I told Lester that there’s no difference between him relying on his Ford Ranger and me trusting the harness and the zipline but he won’t budge from the buffet.

Lester: Hey! The zipline wasn’t built Ford tough. Anyway, we then drove further into the countryside and down to a riverside bend. I could see the rapids from where I was parked but when Hazel Ludovice, Ford’s corporate communications manager, asked for volunteers to drive the vehicles to the pick-up point, I immediately raised my hands, both of them. After all, my motto is "Anything with wheels, anywhere on land, never on water" and I intended to keep myself cool, in the air-conditioned confines of the Ranger, not in the water.

Ayvi: There’s one simple rule for me though, "try anything once" and I haven’t rafted in CDO. Besides, it was fun to be reunited with an old paddle buddy, Hot Wire’s Rovilson Fernandez. We did a Chico River run once before. This time, I almost impaled him with my paddle going over one of the rapids. Our raft went straight into an undercut and everybody on our raft almost got their faces scraped off. I decided to remain true to my motto and hitched a ride with our guides in their triyak. We flipped countless of times, I practically drank a gallon of river water and my raft mates almost run me over but that has never happened to me before. Besides, our shirts said ‘Built Ford Tough" and I was going to let this Ford event toughen me up.

Lester: While my media colleagues were having their wits shaken out by the river rapids, I drove off to the Cagayan de Oro Ostrich and Crocodile Farm with our tour guide, Tito Mora. (No, he’s not my uncle. It’s his name, really.) For a minimal fee, animal lovers can see how ostriches copulate (missed that, shucks!), lay eggs and grow from chicks to adults while croc fans can see a gang of crocodiles lazing in their man-made pool. (That’s more like it!) The farm breeds ostriches for their meat, skin and eggs while the crocs are bred for their skin and for the fun of it. Imagine pushing the people you hate into the crocodile pool, hmmm…now that’s fun!

Ayvi: The next day, we caught a ferry from Balingoan to Camiguin Island, drove to Paras Beach Resort and rode a boat to a sand bar. White Island is more Lester’s surf, er, turf.

Lester: After a hearty lunch that included succulent crabs, I was ready to doze off in the cool shade of the island’s patch hut but Ford’s Nenuka Guba convinced me to go for a dip. (Let’s go for a swim or you swim back to Manila. Which will it be?) In Camiguin, we charged into another adventure. We went to the Arden Hot Springs to soothe our aching muscles from all that, uh, hard work.

Ayvi: Of eating crabs?

Lester: Lounging is hard work too, you know…Personally, I was too lazy to shower after swimming in the ocean, so the hot springs seemed like a perfect place to rinse, without scrubbing.

Ayvi: While Lester soothed his aching muscles in the hot springs of Arden, I had to apologize to my companions in the 4x4 Everest for causing theirs. The Camiguin tour was a choose-your-own-adventure and because I had to be Go-girl in this episode, I had to insist we do the one hour hike of the Stations of the Cross. Interesting conversations, spectacular footage and photographs, and an easier hike down — the choice was well worth it. Add to that, the hike to the top was a metaphorical homage to the Everest. Things were falling into place.

Lester: The next day, I decided to lounge with my roommate Alvin because we had time before we had to check out of the hotel and drive to our lunch site while Ayvi and our triathlon expert Andy Leuterio joined an expedition at the Mapawa Rainforest Reserve and left quite early.

Ayvi: It was not join an expedition. It was more like Andy, BusinessWorld correspondent Ellen Red, Auto Extreme’s Jay Feliciano and I were the only ones who wanted to remain true to the itinerary.

Lester: Lunch was in the itinerary! Mapawa is a serene and lovely place, full of exotic plant life and friendly people. It is surprising and refreshing to find such a place near a metropolis like Cagayan de Oro. However, we there for lunch and the roast calf was really delicious…

Ayvi: And while they were having a nice lunch, we were river trekking, jumping off outcroppings into river pools, rapelling down waterfalls and slip-sliding down river rocks and boulders. After all that, we rushed to the lunch area on horseback only to find out everyone has left and missed our grand entrance.

Lester: But you were late and you almost missed the flight back to Manila.

Ayvi: It was an hour on horseback and we were just glad to get off the horses and into the Escape for the race to the airport.

Lester: The three days we spent with the Ford expedition in Cagayan de Oro and Camiguin was a blast! Not only did it prove the Go-Everywhere capability of the Ford SUV line-up but it also proved you can get there in style and comfort.

Ayvi: Tell me about it. You’ve been busy lounging inside the Fords while stuffing yourself with food all the time, La-Z-Boy!

Lester: Okay, okay… Next time, let me be the intrepid adventurer and you could be uh, Lady Lounge. Hmmm, I wonder if I could fit into your Go-Girl costume…

Ayvi: Oh, please… Next time, it will still be you and me and I think you’ll like it more if we call it the "The Adventures of the Go-Girls". Now that’s more like it.