The three-city tour was fast, ran in timely fashion and organized.
We didn’t have any time for waiting or second-guessing that will happen next. Within the blizzard-cold coaster, as we started rolling on Edsa, the surrounding atmosphere turned warm and very quiet. Unique from previous tours we attended before, where ears virtually bled from visitors talking endlessly all through the trip.
I had gingerly slid my back on the seat, all prepared to coil and sleep lightly to catch some sleep. I was informed that it was a one-and-a-half-hour travel, when I heard two girls laugh nervously and kept uttering the word “Elpipicheya.”
On the fourth referring of that strange name, I really got inquisitive and started listening carefully. Were they going to hand out pieces of pichi-pichi or chichiriya? Did I really heard it right, I asked myself again and again. After all, we were gradually moving toward Malabon, and we are quite aware that the city is known for glorious pancit and other wonderful kakanin.
Taking my travel bag, I got to know that “Elpipicheya” was actually LPPCHEA, acronym for the Las Piñas-Parañaque Critical Habitat and Ecotourism Area, the huge stretched out of coastal patch of land without limits to the public because it was desolate, suffocate by garbage and had a responsive ecosystem. As your airplane descends to Manila, it’s the same mangrove forest we see. It is one of the most beautiful things that happened to this lonely patch of land, a kind of a welcome break from a sea of buildings that suffocate the metro.
Tags: Manila offers tourism
