Gulugud-Baboy day climb

       Med school life is a mostly sedentary one, and for the longest time I'd been itching to go on a do-it-yourself backpacking adventure somewhere. That dream finally materialized last Saturday when Rap and I went hiking up Mt. Gulugod-Baboy, the second mountain I've ever climbed (I blogged about my first time here). Gulugod-Baboy means "pig's spine."

       A quick note about me: I am neither a mountaineer nor an athlete. I shudder at the thought of physical exertion. Mountain climbing sounds just as appealing to me as climbing up 1,000 flights of steps to the top of my condo. But I was game for the climb anyway for a bunch of reasons: I wanted to get out of Manila, I wanted to put off studying for the test on Wednesday, and I felt kind of confident that I would be stronger this time around (i.e. compared to my first climb).

        A quick note about climbing: When I climbed Pico de Loro in January, the Loyola Mountaineers had advertised it as an "easy" climb. Naturally, I expected it to be a nice, breezy walk up a big slope. But nope. It was actually a steep scramble up a monster of a mountain that left me feeling like my lungs were going to collapse and my heart was going to explode. Lesson learned: Don't trust mountaineers.

        Okay, I've said too much. Now on to the trip:

        5 AM. Rap and I had breakfast at McDonald's and then took a taxi to the EDSA bus station. We  boarded a bus to Batangas and I fell asleep instantly. 

     8 AM. Woke up on the SLEX and it was raining lightly. When it stopped, there was a nice rainbow in the sky.

          

          Some time later, we arrived in Lipa, Batangas, where a man selling buko pie peddled his wares on board. Obviously, I love buko pie. But sadly, what he was selling tasted more like bibingka. :( 

I am the buko pie fiend.

          At around 8:30, we got off at the Batangas Pier, only to realize that we should have gotten off at the Grand Terminal three stops ago! Sensing our lost-ness, trike drivers and jeep drivers instantly swarmed us and tried to get us to pay P1,000 to ride with them to the drop-off point in Anilao. 

Rap calling Bel, a Batangas native, for reinforcements.

        Before making any rash decisions, Rap called Bel (who lives in Batangas) to ask for directions back to Grand Terminal. Then she and her mom so kindly offered to pick us up and drive us there instead!

Waiting at the pier.

I discovered howto achieve a solar flare effect.

       After some waiting, Bel and her mom, Tita Marivel, arrived to rescue us. Once we were in the car, they told us some news: they were driving us all the way to Anilao (our destination), which was an hour away! THANK YOU BEL AND TITA MARIVEL!!!

Saw some interesting sights along the way.

        The drive to PhilPan Resort in Anilao (where the jump-off point was) took about an hour. We got there at 10:30, said goodbye to Bel and Tita Marivel, and then registered at the station with a nice woman named Lisa. In the PhilPan lot, a bunch of mountaineers were throwing a Christmas party for the community there. How nice!

         And then, at 10:51, we started our trek up. We tucked our phones in our bags so we didn't get to take any pictures of the trail. But just so you know what it's like, it was very steep, and in some unshaded areas, quite hot. The path was cemented near the base of the mountain, but it eventually forked into a small but well-established dirt trail.

        According to websites, there are supposed to be a lot of rest stops on the way up that sell halo - halo. But in our trek, we only encountered one, and that was near the start of our climb. This particular stall was run by a nice old lady named Ester Maliglig.

One buko juice will cost you about as much as one tae.

           The halo-halo was refreshingly cold and sweet, and just at twenty-five bucks for a big serving! I failed to take a picture because I was really tired.

Pooped. And after only fifteen minutes of climbing. 

          It was nice climbing with just Rap, because we got to take a lot of rest stops (as per my requests). A quarter of the way through, he also offered to carry all my water bottles, which literally took the weight off my shoulders. Still, I would get tired pretty quickly. Had we been in a bigger group, I'm sure I would've been a lot more miserable because I would've been too shy (or stubborn) to ask for as many rest stops.

One of the rest stops on the way up had a doggies!

The puppy's name is Lyka. I don't know what the boy's is.

            After about two hours of climbing and resting, BOOM! WE MADE IT!

           We had the peak all to ourselves! There was nobody else there, surprisingly. The view was incredible, but dark clouds were rolling in from one side so we had to eat lunch quick, take as many photos as we could, and then head back down.

(Note: the pixely pictures were taken with Rap's phone camera and the nicer ones were with my tablet. :))

            I found some poop that looked like the Shrine of the Silver Monkey from Legends of the Hidden Temple!!!

It's just 3 freaking pieces. It's not that hard. 

Rap took a picture of me WITH the poop. I don't know why.

         After spending about an hour at the peak, it was time to return. We took just an hour going back down! It was a lot easier than going back up, although it still requires a lot of physical strength. My legs were wobbling towards the end of the climb. I scraped my elbow too, but it's not bad. 

Just a rest stop on the way down. So. Tired.

Taken at the base of the mountain. Climb over!

The event log. ("Got perd" = I got my period. We also bought Ester Maliglig's ube halal on the way down.)

Do you see that tree decorated with colorful tubes? That's water mixed with food coloring in ice candy wrappers.

That's me inspecting the pictures I took.

               At 3 PM, we could have gone to the beach to swim, but it was pretty late and we were both tired. So we showered in Lisa's house (we paid, of course), changed into fresh clothes, and then took a trike and then a jeep back to the Grand Terminal in Batangas City, Batangas (AKA where we should have told the bus to stop).

          That's all the pictures I took! The ride back in the trike was really nice and scenic. I was asleep through most of the jeep ride and subsequent bus ride. I was super tired! The bus ride back to Cubao took 3 hours. It felt like forever, too. Traffic's bad this time of year, I guess.

           Anyway, that's it! Gulugud-Baboy is a nice climb for beginners! I don't normally like climbing mountains but this time I had a lot of fun. If you want to organize a climb yourself, check out PinoyMountaineer.com for some help. Or comment here, I'm sure Rap will be willing to give you some pointers too. :)

P.S. I discovered how to use this nifty feature on my tablet called the PhotoSphere! Here's the view from the peak of Mt. Gulugod-Baboy. You can see a half-headed Rap and a blurry spot where I'm supposed to be standing.



See the bigger version here!