The Final Hike for Light, Mt. Apo, took place on the weekend
of February 12th-13th.
Mt. Apo is the tallest peak in the Philippines, so fitting for our last
hike. It is located near Davao City, on
Mindanao, the southernmost island of the Philippines. The first thing to keep in mind for the rest
of this blog, is that Mindanao is a travel ban zone designated by the US State
Department. There are anti-government
groups active in the area (Communist and Muslim), that were the reason this
hike was cancelled back in November.
There are 3 ways I can be fired from my Princeton in Asia Fellowship –
1. Ride a motorcycle without a helmet 2. Ask for a raise from my employer 3.
Travel to Mindanao. The only reason I
was able to make this trip is that we assured the powers that be in PIA that I
would be with a large group and well protected at all times. Kidnappings for ransom, while not exactly
common, certainly happen.
We flew down on Thursday night, stayed in a hotel, and met
up with the group on Friday morning. A
number of the climbers had also joined us for the first hike, Mt. Kitaanglad,
so it was a bit of a reunion when all got together for the first time. Our Friday itinerary started out with a visit
to the Mayor’s office, and a turnover ceremony with a number of local
residents.
Afterwards, we all packed
into the back of a pickup truck, as is the customary transport on the Hike for
Light. However, this one was a bit of a
stretch. We piled our group of roughly
60 climbers into the back of two pickup trucks and headed up the mountain to
the trailhead. However, as the road got
bumpier and bumpier, I began to get sick of holding on to the rope for dear
life and being thrown around constantly. I decided the truck just wasn’t worth it, and
got out to walk. As I strolled up the
road by myself, all alone in the middle of rural Mindanao, I realized that if I got
kidnapped at this point it would totally be my own fault. However, I encountered nothing but cute
Filipino kids and farmers minding their own business.
The first town we stayed in was about a 2 hour hike from
where the truck dropped everyone off. It
consisted of about 20 houses, no electricity and…a basketball court. Immediately upon showing up I went over to
check the guys playing ball, and found that they were basically playing HORSE for
money. Oh you know I was all over
that. I thought to myself hey, this’ll
be fun, and I can give all my change to these folks. If I am winning, I’ll just start missing shots
and give all the money back. Oh,
Danny. Turned out that wasn’t a problem
and, much to everyone’s enjoyment, I had lost all 30 pesos in my pocket within
a half hour. It was the rims! The wind!
Is that hoop regulation size or what?!!
How does this 10 year old keep draining jumpers?? Home court advantage. That’s my story and I’m sticking to it.
Afterwards, our trusty climb leader for all of the hikes, 60
year old team Everest veteran Fred Jamili, led a training session with the
lanterns we had carried up to the village.
This particular village had been using tree sap for nighttime light whenever
available. We also witnessed a lady walk
out of her house in the pitch black with a cloth lit on fire sticking out of a
bottle of rum. This was her source of
light to go use the bathroom at night. A
Molotov cocktail! I feel confident that the solar lanterns donated that night
will provide a much safer alternative.
We spent the night in this village, then hiked back down and
climbed, once again, onto the truck of despair.
I decided to ride all the way down this time, remembering my feeling
from the day before.
That afternoon we began our hike up to “The Nursery” where
we would camp before making our summit push the next day. The Campsite had a huge wooden building in
the middle of it that had fallen into disrepair, but did provide some much
needed shelter (it rained that afternoon and evening) for drying clothes and
cooking. We would camp at this site for
the next two nights, and make the hike up to the summit and back with day packs
only.
The hike up Mt. Apo was quite different from the rest of the
hikes. We started at basically the foot
of the mountain, and did the whole thing in one day. The trail was quite steep, but with no heavy
pack to carry it was manageable. We were
above the tree line and out in the open for pretty much the entire ascent, which
afforded and breathtaking views whenever the clouds parted.
Unfortunately, the first thing we noticed
upon arriving at the summit was a giant pile of trash. There is a camping area at the summit, and
previous visitors had thrown trash everywhere.
Fortunately, some of our solar ambassadors, the local climbing group
from General Santos, were totally prepared.
They immediately got out large plastic bags they had carried up the mountain
and began cleaning up the trash. They lugged
about 5 bags of trash all the way down to our campsite, and off the mountain
the next day.
Apo has two summits, and a crater valley in the middle. Down
the side of the mountain opposite where we had summited was another grassy crater
that reeked of sulfur. We had lunch and
spent a couple hours at the summit, then headed back down to the nursery.
Link to 360 degree panoramic photo of the Apo Summit:
http://www.virtualphilippines.net/Panoramas/H4L/Apo/Apo_Summit_Crater.html
Soon after arriving
back at camp we realized that some of us had gotten terribly sunburned. I applied sunscreen twice throughout the day,
and was still pretty pink. Those who
went without, including one who decided to do some sunbathing at the summit, were
really red. In general, the sun in the
Philippines is not to be toyed with. But
out in the open all day at high altitude is another story. Many of the lighter skinned Filipinos were
even sunburned, spawning a slew of jokes about the “Hike for Sunburn.” Wearing sunglasses indoors to cover her
peeling skin at our company retreat the next weekend my coworker, Chinie, began
with “Hi I’m Chinie, and, I’m not blind…”
That evening a number of hikers showed up and shared the
nursery campsite with us. They seemed
like a pretty normal group of hikers, other than the fact that about 5 of them
were carrying M16s. You know, just out
for a hike with my M16. No big deal.
On the way back down the next morning, I was hiking
leisurely with my new buddy, Rhonson, learning how to say silly and
inappropriate things in the local dialect.
As we neared the base of the trail, a loud explosion in the distance
shattered the calm forest atmosphere. It sounded almost like a gunshot, but
seemed too loud. We all stopped and
looked at each other, not knowing what to do.
We didn’t really have much choice, and continued walking down the
trail. It was just one shot, and didn’t
sound like a struggle or anything more serious.
As we proceeded down the trail, we heard about 3 more solitary BOOMS of
increasing volume. Clearly we were heading
towards the noise, and I had forgotten to bring my M16. This was all a bit unsettling, but the
Filipinos in our group seemed not to think it was a big deal.
When we finally reached the trail head we found that the
source of the commotion was a military gathering (government troops) saluting
one of their generals by firing off blank cannon rounds. The soldiers turned out to be very cool guys
who were about to set off on a hiking/tree planting expedition. They were even interested in purchasing some
of our solar lanterns for nightly patrols.
We spent that night back at the same hotel in Davao, and
caught our return flight to Manila the next day.
Here ends the Hike for Light series of the
DannyPIAPhilippines blog. For those of
you that tuned in just for this stint, thanks for reading. For those that were more interested in
Boracay weddings and posts of that sort, stay tuned for the next blog:
Yes, that weekend was another win.
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