Batanes (Day 4) – December 31, 2009

Time to fly back to Manila. This day was the most uneventful. I woke up, packed my things, had breakfast, waited to be brought to the airport checked in, waited to board, flew back to Manila, went home. It was actually quite a nice experience, considering my getting to Batanes had so much pain, agony, and drama. (See previous posts for more detail).

I noticed something very odd about the runway. Odd for me, I guess it was by design. The runway is tilted at an angle. A number of theories why… but nonetheless it was interesting.

I had the opportunity to take some pictures of the airport while waiting for the flight.

The airport, considering how remote Batanes is, was quite nice. A lot nicer than most of the provincial airports I had been in 2009. For starters it was tastefully designed to resemble the Ivatan stone houses… but other than that, it was also very very clean. The construction of the building was very sharp as well.

I was reviewing the 800+ pictures I took. While not everyone was perfect, most turned out very very nice… even this random picture of a tree at the airport… hehe… la lang.

So  we boarded the plane… on time. I took the opportunity for a few last shots.

View from my window…

I fell asleep for around an hour, when we were mostly over water. Looking out the window, my view turned to that of mountains as we passed over Luzon. I saw some sparsely populated towns here and there and was wondering which those were. And then I noticed we passed over an extremely populated area over the mountains… I realized… it has to be Baguio.

I realized that that “football field” looking area has got to be Burnham park… and that white rectangle above it… of course… SM Baguio…

Moments later, we passed over a long strip. My guess was Lawakan Airport?

Anyway… shortly after we landed in Manila. We landed a little early, roughly 12nn on December 31…

That was the end of my last Lakwatsa for 2009

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