Pico de Loro 3: Blunders From Going Under

The descent was pure hell. There was nothing beautiful nor exciting about it. It was in its simplest form, an AGONY.

Imagine this:

I don’t exercise. My legs are so used to walking on high heels that they don’t recognize flat surfaces. Due to work stress, I have turned into a pig. Upon arriving from work, I eat, clean up and go straight to bed. I am not used to the terrain, bad weather brings me down, and I hate bringing a heavy bag.

Then, make me walk for 4 hours straight. Make me feel my sneakers absorbing the mud off the ground. Make me embrace the cold rain and chilling air. Now make me climb a killer mountain.

Yes, the things I had to endure for experience. I pay for Stress.

I almost fell off the cliff when I developed a severe case of cramps while going up (and down) the high wall. Thank God somebody was there to catch me, kundi, Goodbye world na ako.

When I was going up the mountain, I was mumbling to myself, “pano ako bababa?” True enough, one must be equipped with a lot of devil strength to get down.

“anna, mag Four wheel drive ka na lang para makababa ka…”

And I did, all the way.

(Four wheel drive means going down by sitting)

Aaaaaiiiiieeeee!!!

I screamed whenever I would slide down the scary (not to mention muddy) slope. If I didn’t hold on to the “killer bamboo”, I would fall off the side of the cliff. I was fortunate. My friend, Ms Gelli, slid off a longer track and the only thing that prevented her from falling continuously was the split bamboo that caught her chin… Ouch.

After a million near death falls, we finally reached the base of the peak. We can now start the hike going down the mountain (when I say down, it doesn’t mean down… we have to go up, down, up, down, you get the picture), It was past 5… and with a signal #2, that means dark and cold surroundings.

We had to get back to the base camp so that we can finally get the horrible experience done and over with.

Anna banana to Sir Ewick: ang tanging pinangarap ko lang sa hike na ito ay yung Leslie’s sa Tagaytay… Tara, paunahin na naten yung order natin..excited na ako sa Sisig!”
Despite our exhaustion, we didn’t stop to even see the beautiful view of the other mountain. We were just so focused on getting down.

And then we got lost.

We had to stop at a small clearing.

Shall we turn right? Left? Straight ahead?

With no other visible trail than the right trail, we went ahead, despite our silent reservations.

Ten minutes into the trail (and no sights of our groupies), I started panicking. The path was getting darker and darker. The bamboos that were catching our skin were getting sharper and sharper. When we got to the “masukal” part of the forest, I told sir ewick that I don’t remember going into that place.

That’s when I started running toward the other direction.

And once again, the small clearing.

Buti na lang, smart si ewik. He remembered that we took all right turns going up kaya we should now find all paths going left.

True enough, there was an invisible trail on the left, shrouded by the tall bushes. Despite showing off my clumsy side (anna, okay ka lang? tulungan na kita sa bag mo- ewik offered), I held on to dear faith and walked quickly as I shouted my friends’ names on top of my voice.

After 15 minutes of walking, my hope was slipping away. The hardest part was when we arrived at another crossroad. We were, just like the cult series, LOST.

That’s when I asked sir ewik to get his phone and call the others. Just our luck, there was no signal. And that’s when we saw that it was already past 6 pm.

We just had to use our sense of intuition to choose the right path and luckily, after another 10 minutes, we saw them standing at the stream.

Now together with the pack, we breathed a sigh of relief and held on to each other’s hands. Wala nang hiwalayan ito, kahit pa mukha kaming mga paper dolls.

We thought the hardest part was over. Well, think again.

We lost the trail. Again.