revisiting daguldol...

trek and beach.. that was the order of the day.

LET'S GO LET'S GO!!

a text that came and said..Daguldol and beach afterwards. preclimb meeting this tuesday TL Aileen Eway will preside.. "huh?" since when ? but the beach part caught my attention.. laiya has always been one of my favorite destinations.. and la luz resort one of the most beautiful i have seen in the area.. so what the heck, TL it is.. and the IT was very simple.. it goes like this: Let's go up, stay there for the night then go down and stay on the beach. Let's snorkel and dive...

so off we went in two groups... me, leo, nette and genie.. and the habol group..aries, james and two of james' officemates myki and janina.. turned out my group had all the provisions and group equipment so we ended up with a lot of stuff on our backs... which was quiet reassuring since we will be up there way ahead of them..

A LITTLE DETOUR

the four of us started trekking past lunch time.. we saw a large group who arrived at around the same time.. they were more than 15 but our guide (since it is required if u register) told us that yes, he knows of a campsite that is big enough for all of us..

i worried a bit since the last time i went to daguldol i remembered that the campsite was a bit small for a group of 25+ campers...

we went on ahead.. passing thru the beach... i saw sunbathers and boy was i ready to let go of my backpack and soak under the sun instead.. we kept joking each other on the fact that we could just actually opt to laze on the beach.. except that to spend overnight on that resort will be expensive! hahaha.. and besides we came to trek.. so fine.. we left the sunbathers and moved on towards the foot of the mountain.

the first time i came here i remembered having such a hard time contemplating on how to climb those darned rocks.. good thing that during that time i already owned a beautiful pair of salomon shoes! however this time around.. it was easier to trek up.. as a result, we had too much time in our hands. . so we decided.. DETOUR!

we went to the falls... opting to go down to frolick.. as we went down, i realized i could not really hear the water falling that much.. as i came nearer, i puzzled over the fact that the water was not roaring as it should, knowing that the falls was over 100ft high..

finally i saw it.. and it dawned on me immediately... SUMMER!!! the river was drying up and the water was just a trickle.. but still we took advantage of it's coolness.

THE DOG WHO CAN'T JUMP

we decided to stay there for 45minutes.. and each of us found a spot on this rocky terrain... genie and leo who just came from a river trekking expedition went further up to check out caves while nette lazed underneath a rocky outcrop...

suddenly we heard a rustle above.. and out came this golden dog bouncing around with four other guys plus a foreigner.. we said hi and the guy spoke to us in straight tagalog.. nette being the friendliest, asked him several quesstions..the old geezer just said.."o tapos na kayo maligo? maligo pa kayo..tanggalin nyo t'shirt nyo!".. i was taken aback, torn between laughing and asking the guy to repeat what he just said... i just laughed instead and thought, well maybe he was just kidding..

we were getting ready to to leave the place already while the foreigner and his "boys" went higher up.. they were calling the dog to follow, but the gap between two rocks was too wide for him..he kept looking for another way but there was just none to be found.. after several minutes of whining, and running and whining some more... one guy took pity on the dog and carried him on his back to cross... now that is something you do not see everyday..

HALO-HALO UNDER THE RAIN

five years ago, the only rest stop above the mountain with a decent refreshment was this buko place..now, it's halo-halo stations... three in all above the mountain.. they ate halo-halo while it started to drizzle..

we caught up with the big group at this point.. and we saw some of their women shampooing their hair and putting on make-up.. we thought they were just day hikers.. getting ready to go down..(although taking a bath in the middle of the trek was baffling enough).. then they were getting ready.. TO GO UP! huh? genie and i exchanged confused looks... it's like are u kidding me? get all cleaned up and get dirty again and be rained on just after taking a bath? well, as they say, it's their cup of tea.

after their halo-halo we started trekking again... and this time the drizzle turned into summer rain.. it was not bad, the water felt good after that scorching heat.. we passed some of the women again, this time taking shelter in one kubo.. we heard them say when we passed by.. "are they going to climb under the rain?" i think in their minds we were crazy too..

SINIGANG NI NETTE

nette being nette when it comes to cooking will never settle for less.. our sinigang was restaurant grade.. even better.. but preparing it took so long so that leo genie and i were already begging nette to put everything together and just eat! but nooo.. it had to be cooked nette's way, no artificial flavoring.. and it was so much worth the wait!

the way she prepared it almost seemed like a ritual especially the fact that we did not bring a rice cooker.. so she boiled tomatos here, sliced veggies there, boiled sampaloc, took it out of the pot..put it back in.. whew! we kept egging her until it was done..and of course my part was to cook rice..and again i cooked it perfectly.. that's a straight record now since pulag! (i think i am better cooking rice in a camp stove than in a regular stove! hahaha)

after dinner..we waited for the habol group.. we gave them till ten pm.. but after leo's wine and genie's tanduay, we decided to go inside our tents and just wake up when they are near..

i worried a bit when 10 came and there were still no sign of them.. i thought perhaps james' officemate must have found it hard especially since it rained. Daguldol is level 1 but still we never underestimate..

a little while longer.. i heard something.. Aries! god, that voice is unmistakable.. so they arrived..and so our group was complete..

nette's sinigang was a big hit.. turned out aries' group started trekking 6pm.. and by the time they arrived at the camp everyone was hungry...

after dinner.. james took out his "vodka".. well it was vodka.. turned out only me, james myki and janina drank.. i do not know if it was really vodka.. but the oranges that myki brought along helped a lot.. hahaha.. and aries being aries was the loudest in the group and kept the jokes flowing. i think that that vodka made me stupid for the night..i became the dunce and half of the time i had to ask aries what he meant by his jokes in which case everyone laiughed at me.. hahaha i had to laugh at myself too.. what can i say that vodka killed half my brain cells!

LA LUZ BABY!

finally we went down (at around 10am!) and the beach was perfect!

aries and i decided to have a massage while james and leo went diving.. nette went snorkeling..and genie and janina just lazed around in our cabana.. nette's pasta really hit the spot adn all of us were so relaxed and replete..

LOST AND FOUND

i have to know when leo's bday is because i am going to give him a compass!!

i almost panicked when upon waking up after my massage the two divers still has not surfaced..more than an hour had passed already and the sun was going down.. so i thought, maybe they went for two dives instead of one.. but then again it was a shore entry.. hmmm..

but i do trust the athletic abilities of those two...it turned out that both of them swam more than 100mteres off the shore towards the wrong bouy.. they descended more than 90ft without any reef in sight.. what they saw though was a weird form of jellyfish.. so they decided to go up, swim another hour and descend to the correct bouy..one that was nearer the shore.. good thing i didn't go with them, if i did i probably gave up halfway since swimming with a tank is quiet hard to do. leo laughed though and said if i went with them they would never have gone to the farthest bouy since i will most probably balk.. i would.. that bouy was so far away you could hardly see it!

HOMEWARD BOUND..LOST AGAIN...

leo drove... (i think these two words are enough) hahaha

we had to make a u-turn twice even i was confounded for a while.. i have been to this area and drove to this area several times.. but it looked different from the back seat.. finally we found the right way.. all of us stopped at jake's restaurant and had dinner..

another perfect weekend was over...