Mountaineering Weekend

Last weekend, I was invited to join the University of San Carlos Mountaineering Club on their first climb of the school year. We arrived at the bus terminal, only to wait over an hour for the bus to leave because buses don't leave until they are full... and we aren't talking "every seat taken" full, but rather "there isn't room for another person to stand anywhere on this bus" full. Once the bus was full, we drove three house south of Cebu City, at lunch, and started our trek. The trek on Saturday was only three hours long and we hiked to the peak where we set up camp. I can't even begin to describe how beautiful it was. Click here to see pictures on facebook. Everything was so green... there were cows and goats everywhere. There was also mud everywhere and I quickly learned that my tennis shoes weren't appropriate footware for hiking up this mountains as I slipped and fell in the mud multiple times. Mic-Mic called it my four-wheeled drive! Once we reached the peak, we set up camp and started cooking dinner. From our campsite, you could see the ocean on either side of Cebu and several other nearby islands. Since this was the first climb of the school year, there were several small groups of Mountaineering Club applicants who had to do a presentation/show as part of the application process. It was quite the performance! There were singing, dancing, rapping, acting, etc. They tried to get me to give a performance as the "honored guest" but thankfully I was able to convince them that that wasn't a good idea.

Sunday morning, we woke up around 6am, prepared breakfast and lunch for the day, broke camp, and hit the trails. It would be about an 8 hour trek, ending at Kawasan Falls. The trek was great. The weather was perfect as it didn't get too hot and the sun was behind the clouds for most of the time. We hiked through several small "towns" and passed locals along the way. One of the mountaineering club's rules is to be friendly to the locals when you encounter them... and so you are supposed to say either Maayong Buntag or Maayong Hapon (good morning or good afternoon). So we would be hiking along and whenever I tried to say Maayong Buntag/Hapon, they would just stare at me and say nothing... I felt so silly. But, I guess I understand their surprise because there are NEVER any white people there... much less white people who speak Cebuano. Still, I felt quite silly.

We stopped at this one house/store to get some fresh coconuts and a guy literally climbed a 50 foot coconut tree barefoot to cut down some coconuts. Talk about fresh! Then he hacked into them so we could drink the coconut milk and eat the fresh coconut. Yummy. We reached Kawasan Falls around 4pm and went for a swim. I was so ready for a swim because the last hour or so of the hike was in the sun and I was literally dripping with sweat. Not very lady like, I must say! The cool water of the falls felt quite refreshing. Then we hiked out of the falls and hopped on a bus headed back to Cebu City.

I felt so priviledged to be a part of this group. It was just me and about 30 filipinos. I had a blast and learned a lot of Cebuano along the way.

(Mic-Mic and I at the start of the trek. Mic-Mic and Leslie adopted me for the weekend)

(this was the view from where we camped)