Odds and Ends watched from the long ride to and from Puerto Princesa to El Nido and back.

• a grey dog sitting on a pile of roadside scree staring off into the distance
• a family living under a blue tarp in a gulley beneath the road
• white egrets working squared off flat-flooded plots of land with water buffalo, one egret standing on the back of a laying buffalo
• cattle egrets. Did they get their name because they hang around cattle or because it looks like a cattle just crapped on their head?
• a man sweeping the road of construction gravel in the rain with a witches broom
• a token mango seed weevil inspection of the van that any even mildly crafty weevil could have breached
• a boy riding his roadside grazing water buffalo
• people standing in line waiting to vote at the local school
• a painting of the landscape photo I wanted to take of the El Nido sunset descending over the ocean between two islands
• an outdoor basketball court with wooden backboards and dirt grass court
• jungle jungle jungle
• banana trees and sugar cane fields, some of the sugar cane fields smoldering back to the black ground
• jack fruit and stunted bananas at a thatched roadside stand
• sales children offering packets of coconut vinegar
• a karst tower rising out of the flat ground
• a woman parasailing on the back of a scooter with a white spotted purple umbrella
• a painting at the seafood grill of kids playing together with the caption that says “I’m glad I grew up before technology took over.”

And the pics that I actually did take.

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On a sad note, I lost my Nikon 3400 camera to a wet bag. It was supposed to be a dry bag and I wanted some pictures of a very beautiful hidden beach but it didn’t survive the swim over. While not entirely pleased with the loss, I take it as a message from the universe to always respect and enjoy the moment, it’s the only way to really hold it forever.