Uncle Leo left for America in 1929 at the age of 19. At that time the trip was free but the accomodation must have been pretty awful because Uncle Leo's friend, a teacher at his high school, died on the trip. His 17-year-old brother Ciano wanted to come, but Uncle Leo told him to finish high school first. Uncle Leo promised to bring Uncle Ciano over after that. But before Uncle Ciano finished, the "World Crisis" (Great Depression) hit. The trip was no longer free. Uncle Leo tried to save up enough to bring Uncle Ciano over anyway, but laying railroad tracks in Marysville, Calif. and migrant farming didn't pay enough for a guy to put much money aside. According to Uncle Ciano, Uncle Leo had hoped to earn enough money (at one point) with a cabbage crop, but sleet killed the crop.

In the years that followed, Uncle Leo met and married Joan's Aunt Jane and settled into a life as a farmer, a seasonal salmon cannery worker in Alaska, and warehouseman in San Francisco. Meanwhile Uncle Ciano married Aunt Petronila, who was Miss Mayantoc beauty queen in 1933. He became a policeman in Mayantoc just a few months before the Japanese took over the Philippines in 1942. He says he refused to serve the occupying army, which had a garrison just up the road. Fortunately the Japanese didn't post a garrison in Mayantoc itself.

During the war Uncle Ciano knew the local guerilla leaders (one was his nephew) as well as the Japanese. Some of the Japanese were OK but some were very mean. One particularly evil officer in a nearby town was killed by the guerillas.

After the war Uncle Ciano worked his way up to police chief. He said that if someone came to his office during the day for any reason and he was not around to see them, he would go to their house that night. He learned to "hate the crime, not the person," he said. Some cattle rustlers once tried to bribe him but he refused. Overall he said Mayantoc was a pretty crime-free town, up until the government built a second road to the town. Before that, criminals were wary about coming to Mayantoc because there was only one way out, and it would be easy to catch them.

Uncle Ciano has a whole wall of fame, full of plaques for achievements, plus Aunt Petronila's Miss Mayantoc photo from 1933! His highest award of all was that twice, he was named one of the top 10 police chiefs in all of the Philippines.

He said all this with such dignity that it didn't come across as bragging, but just as pride.

Uncle Leo finally made his first visit back to the Philippines in 1974, after retiring from his long-held job in a warehouse, with money that Aunt Jane had secretly saved up in a Christmas account. She couldn't afford to go herself, but she wanted him to go. Sometime during his visit, or maybe afterwards in a letter, he tried to convince Uncle Ciano to come back to America with him, 45 years later than planned. It was something they talked about more than once after 1974. Uncle Ciano was tempted and even applied for a visa to move to the U.S., with Uncle Leo as his sponsor. But he had many reservations too. Uncle Ciano knew that if he went to the U.S. he would probably have to start all over again, probably as a laborer. All the friends and respect he had earned in Mayantoc would mean nothing in America. And he would be far from most of his own children and grandchildren, who lived, and still live, right next door to him in Mayantoc. In the end, the U.S. immigration authorities decided the issue for him. His visa took 10 years to come through. And by then, Uncle Leo had died. Uncle Leo died in 1986.

In Mayantoc, Uncle Ciano raised eight children. His first son, Ciano Jr., died as a child. Another son, Dario, died suddenly in his early 40s. Most of the remaining children and grandchildren live near him, within 100 meters of his house. Lety lives in the same house.

We stayed next door at Ofelia's house, sitting on the porch talking as children ran around. At 48 years old, Ofelia is a relatively new mom! She has a pretty daughter Angelica, who turns two years old this summer. (Joan: I have to add here we were totally floored by her generosity. She had never heard of us before and based on a very distant connection, immediately invited us to stay in her house, and eat from her table. We are very grateful).

Ofelia's place was very nice--new and well furnished. It had a beautiful stone floor in the entry, a small livingroom with comfy couches and a color TV, and a large kitchen with a great dining set. She gave us a room for ourselves, which made us feel bad because someone had to sleep somewhere else. We think we displaced Ofelia's husband's nephew Edgar, a young veterinary student who lives there while he finishes school. He cooks all the family's meals and cleans everything up. He does it smiling the whole time. He woke us up the next day asking how we had slept and telling us that breakfast was ready.

We spent the next morning having some long, leisurely good-byes, with Uncle Ciano coming down from his house to join us on Ofelia's porch. Lety said we should have stayed longer so they could show us the barrio. We were tempted but we had come so unannounced and unprepared--the only gift we had to offer was for Angelica, an "I Crossed the Equator" baby T-shirt we had bought that in Sumatra. So we decided to leave before we became a burden.

After our visit, we emailed some of Joan's cousins and learned a little more about Uncle Leo's 1974 visit. We learned that he came home a little bitter that his brother Ciano didn't have a better life. Uncle Leo thought maybe Ciano could be a better farmer. This seemed strange to us. Uncle Ciano is quite a proud, successful, happy man surrounded by family in his old age--the way Uncle Leo was in his life in San Francisco. We are guessing that Uncle Leo may have died believing that he had failed his brother by not getting him to America.

Our ride out of Mayantoc was wonderful--back roads, pretty scenery, light traffic. In the afternoon we reached a main highway and the traffic got really bad and the road very narrow. It was the worst kind of road for a cyclist--narrow pavement and a wide rocky "boulder shoulder." All the cars expected us to use the shoulder but it was so rocky we could hardly control our bikes when we slipped on the shoulder from the highway.

We ended up at a pretty nice little hotel in Sison that rents by the hour. It was obviously set up to be a place to rendezvous with your mistress. They had garages with doors that close so you can even hide your car while you're there. They serve food but don't have a restaurant. Everything is room service. We didn't really care. It had AC and was pretty comfy.

We stopped in Sison because it sits near the bottom of the big 5,000-foot climb to Baguio (pronounced Bag-ee-oo).

Next: the big climb.