Another fun weekend spend with the Backpackers United :)
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| Backpackers United at the foot of Mt. Daguldol - Photo by Victor Ayson |
At first I was again hesitant because I have no friends again (Ha!)... I meant, I have no
old friends.
Anyway, Ralph and Deo convinced me to come nevertheless because at least I knew some of the climbers already due to the previous climbs. The funny thing was, I invited some "old" friends Yani, Milcah and Patrick. None of them came, but a friend of Yani, Emman, came! Haha Proxy... I don't even know who he is, and I'm supposed to entertain him? Naku, shy pa naman ako! Hindi ako sigurado sa powers ko! Hehe I also saw from the list that there were previous climbers who I climbed with last year... Back when I was really really super shy and quiet (even my sister remarked on it! Now I'm just shy :P). I guess I can redeem myself hehe
Anyway, so on with the climb. We were to meet at 3:30 AM in McDo Buendia-Taft, but well, I got there around 4:20 AM. I was the one who drove so, basically it was a 20-minute travel time from our home. Apparently, I was just on time because the taxi in front of us was dropping Deo off haha (I just love it when things just fall into place!)
At around 5 am, we went to the bus terminal at JAM liner bound for Lipa City, Batangas. (I thought it was JAC liner because it was the liner that was beside McDo! I was calling Deo in his Sun number, which apparently wasn't working. And he was calling me in my Globe, which I didn't bring!) From Lipa, we rented a jeepney bound for San Juan, Laiya, Batangas... The place where I got electrocuted and my heart stopped! (FYI, I'm almost three years old, post-electrocution.)
So, we changed costumes, fixed our things and we left most of our things at the area. We just brought what we need for our dayhike in Mt. Daguldol. Maybe I'm getting fitter or I've just been through a harder mountain, but I didn't think Mt. Daguldol was that hard... Okay, or maybe our pace was slow so it wasn't that hard hehe
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| Photo by Victor Ayson |
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| Photo by Victor Ayson
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There was about a 30-minute walk in the beach to get to the jump-off point, after which there is an average of 3-hour hike to the summit. But we didn't get to the summit first. About an hour from the jump off point, we went to the waterfalls.
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| Photo by Victor Ayson
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There wasn't much area to swim or bathe. But it has many rocks, so we did a bit of rock climbing haha. (Rock climbing na pala iyon? Actually, I think that's what they call "scrambling" but I'm not sure.) I read somewhere that this has the SWEETEST water... They're right. It's the sweetest, based from the colonies of big red ants in the area. You just have to stand in a rock, and ants would crawl up your legs (or your socks, such as in my case).
After a series of photo shoots, we went ahead to continue our trek to the summit. There were originally two series of halo-halo stops and a buko-juice stop. We stopped on the first halo-halo and had our packed lunch there.
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| Halo Halo Stop 1 -
Photo by Victor Ayson |
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| (Original) Halo Halo Stop 2 (but it was on break so there was no halo-halo at this time) -
Photo by Victor Ayson |
Then you will pass by "Pride Rock" (which I named after Lion King because of the protruding rock).
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| Photo by Victor Ayson
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| Seaside view from the Pride Rock - Photo by May Moya |
And you're almost there! Near the summit! The summit was composed of 2-3 trees and a sloping hill. In terms of view, there were other mountains that were higher so you couldn't see a 360 view of the area.
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| Group pic at the Summit - Photo by Victor Ayson
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| Photo by Victor Ayson
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| Panoramic View of the Summit - Photo by Alex Locsin |
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| Other side of the panoramic view - Photo by Alex Locsin |
After the summit, we went back to the beach. It was around 6, so it was getting dark by the time we reached camp. Deo started cooking and grilling, but we were only able to eat around 8 pm already, so we were all very hungry. While waiting for the food to cook, some of us went night swimming. Seeing "underwater fireflies" whenever we move under water, getting stung by a weird underwater organism (cannot be identified due to the darkness), hoping it would be cloudless so we could see stars...
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| Dinner followed by socials. Buti nalang the guys follow a "Ladies First" rule - Photo by Victor Ayson |
After dinner, we had the usual socials. Supposedly, we were to have our karaoke for our socials but it was only up to 10 pm, so we forego that thought. (A lot of us were REALLY disappointed with that thought... So much that we made up for it in our post-climb! Which was really fun because we were almost complete, only 2 of us didn't make it that time, and we finished and dispatched at 6 in the morning! The sun was already shining! Haha But that's another story for another time!) We just had the usual Deo style of Q and A, while drinking some really bad mix of gin, orange and more gin. Really disgusting! Only eating my Oreos made me surpass that! But still...
More photo-ops come morning for those people who were awake.
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| Sunrise at Laiya Beach - Photo by Victor Ayson
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| Rock Formations -
Photo by Victor Ayson |
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| Looking at the sea -
Photo by Victor Ayson |
We ate breakfast. Wanted to play volleyball but there was no ball (I should have brought one! I knew I thought about it...). Played
patintero in this striking heat of a sun. (
Bakit ngayon wala ng clouds? Kagabi ang dami??) Eventually went to the beach at noon! After a series of photo-ops, we fixed our things and went home. I was able to reach mass in Quezon City by 7 pm :)
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| Backpackers United at Laiya Beach -
Photo by Victor Ayson |
PS The campsite was beside the place where I got electrocuted! If only I had my camera (or even my phone camera), I would have taken a picture with MY pole again after three years! Hehe Everything looked the same!
