Crosshatching
I just came from an early morning bicycle ride with my wife and daughter to the lighthouse in Liloan. Actually, the place is just about 20 to 30 minutes of pedaling from where we live. We were only supposed to give my wife’s new bicycle a road test by going on a trip to the public market. But since we’re already so near, we decided to visit Liloan’s heritage icon.
Built in 1905 during the early years of American occupation, Liloan’s lighthouse is perched on a low hill overlooking the Mactan Channel. Today, it is maintained by the high end subdivision beside it.
The road to the tower is now paved with fresh concrete. Its surroundings now has some landscaping, the makings of a small park. When we visited it after it was reopened as a newly-spruced heritage park, we saw a number of food stalls selling barbecue meals and drinks to visitors at night.
But the public still has access to it and can freely roam around its premises to enjoy not just the view of the tower but of the sea. As it looks out to the east, it is best to go there early in the morning to catch the sunrise. But the scenery at dusk is still breathtaking.
I have visited the parola, as the lighthouse is called locally, quite a number of times before. The first few times were spent with artist friends. We would just hop into a friend’s beat up Volkswagen Beetle or commute to the place a few years before the construction of the subdivision there, when it was all rocks, a few trees, and shanties nearby.
We would go there to sketch or paint the tower. At other times, my friends and I would bring our fishing rods and descend to the rocky shoreline to fish without much success.
Fortunately now, we just live not so far from this iconic structure. And yet, somehow, we have also forgotten it. Close to where we live is a big shopping mall and there are more shopping centers sprouting not far ahead.
On weekends, it becomes tempting to go to the mall to attend the mass, then do a little grocery, and have breakfast or lunch in one of its fastfood restaurants. And if we have time or budget to spare, we can even watch a movie in the afternoon.
The ease of motorized travel allows families now to not only frequent shopping malls but also take weekend trips to the beaches or mountain resorts.
Always looking for relief from the stress of work and house chores, our mindset is to take that weekend get-away or escapade. In other words, we think of travel as at least a night’s stay in some cozy place somewhere far.
But a bicycle trip around where you live is for me a great way of filling in the gaps, or those moments between vacations. Those early morning rides meant mainly for exercise becomes an opportunity to rediscover what your community has to offer in terms of sightseeing. You can make your own “heritage mapping”, so to speak, by checking out historic buildings and places not so far from where you live.
Of course, you need first to know your local history. Incidentally, Consolacion, where I live, has maintained a community museum right in the shopping mall that we frequent. Perhaps, local officials were so desperate in getting their constituents to be interested in town history that they decided to bring the museum right where most people gather. And that is the shopping mall, of course. I should know.
But today, we chose not to do our heritage tour at the mall. We decided to take the short and slower trip: on a bike. We found out it’s not just a delight to be able to exercise or do a little shopping at the public market at the same time. Biking allows you to take “rest stops”. You can choose to drop by a buko stall to replenish lost electrolytes with fresh coconut juice. Or stop over for puto and sikwate or freshly-baked bibingka in a roadside store.
It’s the lighthouse, for now. I just read about the places in Consolacion that saw a lot of combat during World War II. And they’re just somewhere close to our subdivision. And there’s that artist-friend and his collective called Neo-Tribe who has been inviting me to see their studio-gallery along the road in Compostela. I’m booking that for the next bicycle ride.
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