DAVAO CITY (MindaNews/12 April) — From the south to the north.
Davao-based Redemptorist priest Amado “Picx” Picardal, who left the city on March 24 for a 56-day cycling journey around the country “for life and peace,” is now in Aparri, and has covered a total of 1,850 kilometers in 20 days.
Picardal told MindaNews by telephone that he arrived there just before noon “feeling like a celebrity.”
He said he was “met by 50 local bikers led by a police car and with lots of fireworks.”
Day 17 (April 9), saw Picardal cycling from Cabanatuan to Bayombong and Day 18 (April 10) saw him cover the distance between Bayombong and Ilagan.
Day 19 (April 11) had Picardal negotiating the Ilagan-Tuguegarao road and Day 20 (today, April 12) saw him bike from Tuguegarao to Aparri.
The summer heat has not been kind but Picardal does find time to cool himself with his “halo-halo” stops. “Halo-halo” (literally meaning “mixed,” is a refreshment made out of a combination of fruits and jellies, crushed ice and milk and sometimes, ice cream).
On Day 17 while negotiating Cabanatuan to Bayombong, Picardal said he “stopped by several roadside stores to eat halo-halo.
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“By noontime I was ascending the winding road to Dalton pass. As the heat became unbearable, I reminded myself that this was nothing compared to the Jericho-Jerusalem ascent through the desert which I did in 2005 when I biked around the Holy Land. I doused water on my jersey and put a wet towel over my head, underneath my helmet.
I kept checking my heart rate monitor to make sure that I won’t exceed my safe heart rate level. I reached the summit of Dalton pass at 1:45 pm and immediately had lunch at a roadside restaurant. From there it was all downhill. I noticed that my shifter for the chain-ring wasn’t functioning. I continued to pedal as fast as I could so that I can make it for the mass. I reached Bayombong at 4:45 pm after biking for 155 km,” Picardal wrote in his blog, http://amadopicardal.blogspot.com/.
On Day 18, while negotiating the Bayombong-Ilagan route, Picardal said it was “again very hot between 9:30 a.m. and 3 p.m.” so he “made several halo-halo stops.”
On Day 19, from Ilagan to Tuguegarao, Picardal said he “stopped by a noodle house along the road at 9:30 and I stopped again an hour later for halo-halo. B then the head had become unbearable.’’ (MindaNews)
