I’m tracing my travel history from 1974 up to the present. This post ends this series of 5.

It seems that I cannot stay long in a particular place. I’m always moving and in my 9 years of being a telecoms engineer, I have worked in Cebu, Davao, Cagayan de Oro and then in Makati. My transfers were either voluntary or offered to me and I always say yes, always seeing that there’s something new for me. With my Makati stint, I didn’t realize that this change would be too great.

In the last two years of being a telecoms engineer in Smart, I still kept on traveling but new places were not as many as before:

• Edward Vives as well as Paul Siraudeau, European contacts who study beetles came over the country and we collected in Imugan, Nueva Vizcaya (Vives) and later on travelled to Lubuagan in Kalinga (Siraudeau), my first visit to this places
• another company outing brought me to Coron, Calauit and Culion as well as a brief plane stop in El Nido in transit from Puerto Princesa
• Batad was very memorable since I got fined for breaking a ritual
• I finally set foot in Zambales during a climb in Mt. Tapulao

At the end of the 3rd quarter in 2006, I have decided to quit my job and be a professional photographer. What change. It was difficult but at the same time liberating. Working on a book project for San Agustin Museum brought me to new places:

• I’ve always been curious about Catanduanes and with the assignment of shooting the church of Bato, I was able to visit this place
• Cuyo is another island that I’ve been wanting to go even while I was still in Mindanao. With the book, I realized this dream as well as visit the remote island of Agutaya where another fortress church can be found
• Romblon was another assignment that brought me to this island
• I’ve been going in and out of Bicol, Bulacan and Laguna as well as other provinces where I covered a hundred churches across the country
• outside of being a photographer, Lydia, a butterfly enthusiast invited me to a conference in Hongkong

That’s it. I’m now looking forward of hitting the road again starting the later part of this month and for the rest of the year.

Check a summary of my travel history.

Map by Eugene Villar’s Lakbayan