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Night trekking in Mt. Makulot |
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After a very busy and tiring week in our atelier I accepted an
invitation of a friend who's a mountaineer and an adventurer buff to
do a trekking. I met my friends at around half past four because i needed to be in the atelier until afternoon (saturday is our payday and we often use it as an opportunity to have a small lunch together) and the plan of my friend was to do a night trekking. Trekking by night, in the mountain, in the middle of the jungle...the idea sound funny put not really the king of leisure time I was hoping.
Since it is already the start of the rainy season in
Philippines there was heavy traffic everywhere so on the way we
decided to have some short break to taste the specialty of the this
town of Batangas (Lipa): some rice cake mufins and some lomi, a kind of noodle served with a sticky sauce. It was worth a stop the food was really good, they are even prepaing them in front of you as you order them. We reached the foot of the mountain at around 9 in the
evening. Mt Maculot in fact was favorite training trek for
mountaineers, its slope is supposed to be easy enough for
beginners (that's what they claim!!). After registering to the
Municipal Hall (for security reasons), we started trekking at 9:30, our guide told us it will take normally 2 to 3 hours to climb it. Well in fact we were really not preparedas a result we ended up walking in the dark, guided only by the flashlights of other people. It was really impressive to walk in the dark like that with for only light the flashlights of other climbers and some beautiful clouds of fireflies along the way. You could only hear the noises of the forest at night: the birds, different kinds of insects...and some unidentified noises! I must admit I felt scared ! We walked like that for hours, seeing nothing neither in the back nor in the front and with only the night breeze touching you and the smell of the forest.
After an hour we decided to do our first stop over and when our guide told us to look back i saw the beautiful lights of the cities like millions of fireflies gathered down there. We finally reached our destination at midnight, shocking though that there were already plenty of trekkers who were installed at the summit. The ambiance was very gay and hospitable and we chatted a little bit before sleeping.
We spent the night there and
we woke up at 5:30 am, unfortunately that was too late to see the sunrise. Our disapointment was soon erased by the beautiful scenery fronting us. We were on the top of the mountain surrounded by lakes and you could even see the Taal volcano (known to the Filipino as the "smallest volcano n the world") from afar and on the other
side the beautiful sea of Batangas. It was a beautiful morning. We went down an hour later after a short breakfast (of rice but of
course!!). Second amazement: since we climb at night I never realised how beautiful this forest was. The vegetation changes everywhere: wild flowers, wild orchids, some fruits like papayas, avocado, mangoes and of course hundreds and hundreds of coconut. I saw differnt kinds os bamboo, from the big ones to small ones, to ones that climbs and clings to one that is like a very giant tree. It was not a bad idea after all to do this night trek: I will do it again as soon as possible!
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