Hiking and Caving at Mt. Puting Bato
Life have been so busy for me these past few months in school, especially the month of March, working with outputs, conducting and writing three field study books and preparing for the final exams. It has been almost a month since our class ended, but I didn’t have time to be back in blogging, I have been procrastinating and been busy with other things at home.
A week ago, was Romblon Baktas Mountaineers second year anniversary and I am more than excited to climb with them again, but finding someone to drive my motorcycle was not easy, my sister can’t drive and my cousins were working, that’s where a hiker friend asked me if I want to climb with them on the same date to Mt. Puting Bato, as I looked through the name of possible hikers I have noticed most of them were my friends, I was told there was an issue with the old group and it was too long to elaborate, so I didn’t ask anymore about it.
Since, the proposed hike was just nearby and my father can drive for me to the jump-off, I decided to hike with them. It was me who arrived first at the jump-off, my father didn’t left until my hiker friends came. We are only 10 hikers at the jump-off, and five of us were unfamiliar to me. After a few minutes of prepping and meeting our hiking guide and another hiker friend, we started walking to the foot of the mountain. It was very easy hike compare to the first time I hike at Mt. Puting Bato whereas I hyperventilate, I passed at the peanut farm without grasping for air, it seems walking through the school campus made me fit to hike.
Our guide told us that there is a new trail to the peak, it is nearer but we have to climb through higher rocky elevation, so we did. Within one hour and fifteen minutes we arrived at the peak, the peak was more friendly and spacious than before, our guide told us that a lot of locals where hiking to the summit and with this, they clean around the peak and constructed some wooden bench up top.
We stayed at the peak, waiting for our two hiker friends who followed. We did a normal hiker will do, enjoy the scenery below and took many pictures as many as we want, RJ as one of the late comer became our instant photographer with his unique photography skills, it was quite very funny because a hiker friend Iphone 7 became the group official camera, whereas most of our pictures, solo and groupies were taken in the said phone, as the outcome of the pictures were good, the colors were so vivid and clear.
We stayed at the peak for three hours and thirty minutes, resting, taking pictures, telling stories, laughing and we also ate our lunch in there. When we think, we already have enough and we stayed quite longer, we started walking down the other side of the mountain, same trail we used in our first hike at Mt. Puting Bato, our hiking trip will not be complete without going to the cave, along the way we passed through a place that looks like a God forsaken land, the trees were cut and the grasses were born to die, kaingin.
Anyway, we did some caving and unlike before where I didn’t go inside the cave, I did go down this time using the pole that where already there. The cave was undeveloped and unprotected, there were bats, birds and stalagmites. It was not that large like the popular cave in Jeju, but spacious enough to accommodate 20 people. We looked around and took pictures, then we decided to go up and continue going down the mountain, whereas everyone felt electrified upon seeing a guava tree, our guide climb the tree for us and he even asked permission to the old man we meet if we can have some buko or young coconuts, so we did along the trail.
When we reached a small hut under the tamarind tree, we rested and waited for the second group and that’s where we got the copies of our photos from a hiker friend’s Iphone 7, we arrived at the jump off at three o’clock in the afternoon.
