Chapter 1 | I Know No Igorot

While on a hike along Mt.Tagpaya in Kibungan, I was surprised to see metal handrails along the dangerous parts of the trail just below our campsite, where one misstep would send you on a one way ticket to afterlife. I remember thinking of how thoughtful it was of whoever erected it, concerned of the safety of hikers like us. What I didn’t understand at the time was that those handrails were not made with us in mind, a tourist, who’ll probably use it once on our lone visit to their town. What I didn’t realize was that we were trekking along trails that’s been used by locals for generations, and still being used until today, moving in and out of their communities, for the simplest reasons like buying supplies, going to school, or just mundane day to day errands. We were trekking on a path up in the mountains, leading to someone’s home, someone’s community, experiencing even for just a day, someone’s way of life. I didn’t realize this then, because like most of us, I’ve never lived in the mountains.

I was raised as an URAGON, a Bicolano term for being tough and fearless. Along the coastline of Sorsogon, I spent every waking hours of my childhood after school either playing along the street with Tex, Pogs, or Marbles –depending on what’s uso (popular), searching for spiders for the Spider-Gladiator-Tournaments we do on a barbeque sticks, or just running like a gazelle whenever my mom furiously chases me away from the beach on our baranggay, pinch-dragging me by the ear to finish my school assignments. It became so frequent that I worried my right ear became longer than the other. And because of this insatiable urge to get out of our house, my skin has been torched under the sun until well into puberty that it later became impenetrable to whitening lotions.

We had a steady diet of assorted sea creatures, a cheap supply of fruits like papaya, bananas and dalandan (it’s like orange, except its green, and it’s superior to sourness), while the most exotic food I’ve ever eaten was a pawikan (I know it’s illegal, I was just a kid then, so don’t judge me). I never got the habit of drinking coffee until I was in college, and it was only once a day, twice when doing a project, but a third cup would feel like my heart was pumping extra blood I don’t have.

The forests I know off are made up of coconuts. Our famers plant rice almost exclusively, and our rice fields are as flat as it can be, and although my grandparents were farmers, the closest thing I did in a farm was to accompany my Lolo whenever he moves the carabaos. When we want to eat vegetables, we buy it in the market.

I’ve always thought that my Lolo’s village was so remote, because it took an hour to reach via a semi-rough road, through a few steep hills, that gets impassable on the rainy season. But that’s a rarity in our town, for almost all the other brgy can easily be accessed by paved roads. The only time I’ve ever felt cold in our hometown were the rainy nights we spent watching Christmas Presentations on our only park, or when the owner of the internet cafes decides to be generous about their air-conditioning.

My childish playing days in the streets ended when I received a Play Station on my 10^th birthday. At 12, I received a guitar. At 14, I already had a cellphone, and I was able to visit Davao and Baguio city before I turned 16. We are not rich by all means, but my father had a good enough job to keep us hovering over the middle class status.

My mother raised me as a Catholic. I served as an usher, a commentator (the one who reads bible passages before the priest gives his sermon), offering collector, youth council officer, and a choir member –a Tenor, belching out evangelical songs during Sunday masses or even at the coveted Simbang Gabi masses on Christmas. Our town was still a rural area,  still abundant with trees and grass, with the ocean lurking on the east, but I rarely think about or was a bit concern about nature, except when it unleashes typhoons, which is a year long supply in our region.

The events I'm about to tell you happened after the most uneventful time of my life- with the highlights being depressing ones. At that point, I can easily summarize what you need to know about me in five descriptions – grew up in the province, attended a university in Manila, worked in Manila, began travelling and hiking on weekends, and has just ledft my job which I hated with intense ferocity. The sixth description would be heartbroken.

I’ve given this idea much thinking, as I was doing this, that I was fairly sure that I was going through a mid life crisis, well, a VERY EARLY midlife crises, I was just 23. I wish I could tell you a more profound purpose on why I went a little bit crazy and spend considerable amount of my time living in the mountains, but I can’t without lying. Find the meaning in life? Be closer to Nature? Find myself? Be closer to God? I’m not that self righteous, or  a little bit concerned with the state of my soul.

The truth was much simpler, and much less enlightened. At that moment, I just thought it would sound awesome. That I can tell infinite interesting stories only I could tell. What I didn’t expect was the one that rode the bus to Baguio on December of 2015, would be far different than the one that went home several weeks later.

First of all, I know no Igorot, (the  cordilleran people). I don’t even know anyone in Baguio City, the province’s capital, except for a childhood friend, a couple of hiking enthusiasts I met during my previous climbs, but no one I could consider a close friend, that on the first night after arriving in Baguio, I slept in the Bus Terminal – for the 7th description about me was being the cheapest guy any of my friends know. I prefer ukay-ukay over brand-new, carinderia over fastfood, MRT over taxi, tents over air-conditioned room – the cheaper, the better.

Not only do I know no Igorot, I can’t speak Ilocano either, the universal language of northern Luzon. At the time, I only know one word, Mangan, which is an invitation to eat. Okay, I admit, I’m overweight. But I’ll be offended if you call me fat. Just think of me as athletic with flabby mid section. But as it turned out, mangan was the only Ilocano I needed in surviving my first weeks in Benguet. I’d just have to be alert about meal time.

A couple of days after Christmas, I was gripping my backpack while sitting on the front seat of a jeepney headed for Tublay, a town 13km north of Baguio. While I’m sure I’ve passed this town several times during my previous hikes, it still looked foreign to me. I was totally clueless. I can’t even tell if I was already in Tublay, or was still in La Trinadid.

30 minutes after we left Baguio, and I was one of the few passengers left,  the driver stopped after ascending a hill.

“Where are you headed exactly? We’ve already passed Acop,” the driver said, which meant two things, that he was genuinely concerned that I was getting lost, or that the fare I paid him was now insufficient.

Before I find out, I just said that this was exactly where I was going, and quickly got out of the jeepney. I even went to a sari-sari store, in case the driver was looking at me on his rear view mirror. It was a little bit funny and mostly pathetic at the same time. I’d probably be one of those inuman stories about a suspiciously looking and confused manileno passenger he once had.

Again, to save face, since I already went to the motions of buying something at that store, I asked for a cup of coffee. The tindera motioned for me to go to the side of her house, where there was a few table and chairs. As she was pouring my cup with warm water, she looked at me intently, then looked away, and then looked at me again, she did this two more times, adding a hint of amusement in between.

“Nagtitinda ka?”. She finally said with her broken tagalog. “Are you a Merchant?”

Apparently, with my tall backpack, I look like a merchant to her. Maybe if I was meztizo, or chinito, it would be obvious that I was a tourist, but since I’m almost as tan as they were, I was passable as an Ilocano, or even Igorot. I was then bewildered why a wandering merchant would be there in the first place. Her house didn’t have any neighbours, and her canteen probably catered to the construction site a hundred of meters down the road. And if there were actual merchants here, what would they be selling in this part of the region? DVD? Beauty Products? Belts and watches perhaps like the mobile merchants in manila?

“Oh no Manang, I’m not a merchant”, enunciating my perfect tagalong to emphasize my origin. In between sipping my coffee, I explained to her that I wanted to explore the different towns in Benguet. “Mahilig po kasi akong maghike.”  I added. “I like hiking!”.

Hiking was probably the first idea I uttered that finally registered in her. She asked me if I’ve been to Mt. Pulag. I told her that I did, and it was the first mountain I’ve ever climbed.

“Ay oo, malamig daw dun.” She said. “They say it’s really cold there”, and asked me again what I was doing there? Why don’t I just go back to Mt. Pulag or even Kibungan, just two towns away? I finally gave up explaining. I just smiled and asked how much was for the coffee.

Before I left, I asked her for directions. She told me to go back to the toll gate, and wait for a jeep that would pass by the brgy I described to her.

Since we were on a higher ground, I can see the highway she was describing. “Is there a shortcut over here?” I pointed to the descent on the other side of the road. “I want to walk, and I don’t wanna walk on the roads.”

To her, I may have sounded ridiculous again. “Ay Malayo! MagJeep ka nalang.” She insisted. “It’s too far!.”

I just thanked her and started walking away. As I was going back to the toll gate, I was wondering how many more locals I’ll be confusing that morning.

 In my head I had this idea of trekking through endless pine tree parks, dense mossy forests, navigating parades of rice terraces, and scaling steep hills, before stumbling onto a secluded Sitio (village). But what I forgot to equate was the transition from metropolitan Baguio, to the rural areas of Benguet. I thought I solved this by skipping the town of La Trinidad, which was more of an extension of Baguio. But Tublay seemed to rip its proximity to the city too, that for the first 3 hours that morning, I found myself walking on its paved roads through two barangays. Three times I tried following the foot paths I found along the way, and each time I’ll be back on the main highway. The sun was the sun wherever you go, and even on the confines of the cold climate in Benguet, without shade, it was still smouldering at noon time. You add the occasional dust on the road, and I finally figured out why Manang thought I had a few screws loose in the head when I said I wanted to walk.

Just before noon, I arrived at a populated sitio. Now when I use the word populated or any of its synonyms here, I only mean that there’s atleast 20 houses clustered together. You’ll probably never hear your neighbour’s love quarrel or their videoke machines blaring through the night, because their houses are more often a good distance from yours’, or the fact that videoke machine are nowhere to be found in the mountains.

As I was sitting at this waiting shed, it didn’t took long for me to gather an audience. My goal that day is to reach a brgy called TUEL and spend the night there. If I follow the road, it swerves to the north, avoiding the descending terrain ahead, passing two more brgy before curving to the west until it reaches Tuel. I had no intention of walking on paved roads all day, I could have done that in Manila, and although this was still a mountainous area, the masochist in me really wanted the foot trails, the river crossings, and the mountain passes. I was sure there is such a path that pierces to Tuel directly. I was right, sort of.

 The first local that confirms this looked like a farmer, because most of them usually are, and his pants are muddy and he’s wearing a straw hat, so of all the locals there on that waiting shed, I paid attention on him the most.

“To Tuel? Yes, yes, there’s a trail. Yes, down the river, near the rice fields, at the end of it, there’s a trail up to a hill, on the other side is Tuel”, he struggled to convey with the few tagalong words he knew, drowned in their native dialect, accompanied by hand gestures, where all I understood was Ilog, Palayan, Paakyat, Kabila (river, rice fields, go up, other side). “I haven’t passed it for years, but it may still exist” he added, again with great difficulty.

As I was asking for more specifics, more and more locals started to converge on us, most of whom women, all are either curious, interested, or probably suspicious. But one of them stood out. A man on his 40s atleast. He was wearing maong jacket over a neatly tucked-in polo shirt, jeans tightened by a black leather belt with shiny buckle, clean rubber shoes, his hair oiled back, and a watch on his wrist. If I were in Baguio, I wouldn’t notice him at all, but here, he stood out.

“Noy, what are you doing here?” he interjected. His tagalog has that same unnatural intonation as the farmer, but his was almost fluent.

“I’m headed to Tuel.” I replied.

“Who’s with you?”

“I’m alone Sir.”
“Why are you alone?”

 I just smiled at him. I don’t know what to answer. No I’m not a loner, I have friends, but no one’s fool enough to join me. They all have jobs, I am currently unemployed – I don’t think that’ll satisfy him either.

 “Where are you from?” He pressed me again. It’s a good thing I was already sweating, for they didn’t notice the additional sweats dripping on my forehead brought by this interrogation.

“Manila po.” I smiled again, trying to look as harmless as I could.

 “What are you doing here?” again he asked. He wasn’t hostile in any way, but he wasn’t as comforting as a teddy bear either. His inquiries are a mixture of curiosity and concern. I would find out later that he was a Kagawad, a Brgy Offcial, a tier lower than a Brgy Kapitan.

The mental notes I’ve been preparing for this kind of questioning finally kicked in “Ay. Hiking po. Im just going around Benguet, Hiking mostly. I heard there is a waterfalls in Tuel. I want to see it.”

 He finally smiled, and I was finally relieved. “Oh turista! Yes, yes, Tuel is beautiful. The river is beautiful, I don’t know about the people, but Tuel is Beautiful.” Everyone laughed. I’m missing the joke. “Never heard of a waterfalls there, but there’s a hot spring! It’s good! There’s many turista like you.”

“Just wait here, a Jeep will pass by later. It goes straight to Tuel”. He added.

“No, no, I want to walk” I had to clarify again.
“Why?” he asked, making him the second person I confused that morning.

“I like walking!” I exclaimed it as cheerful as possible. “and tatay here” I pointed to the farmer, “Said there’s a shortcut down the river and Up those mountains”.

“No, no, no. You’ll get lost! No one passes through that anymore. You’ll get lost. Then they’ll blame me!” he was now serious. “Just followed the road okay? It just near, maybe 3 hours. But why won’t you just ride the jeep?”.

“I like walking!”. If I go with this answer 20 more times, they would still not understand. I was weird to them.

After a few small talks, and a few more insistence on my part to try the shortcut, Kagawad always scolded me. “No way! You’ll get lost. Then they blame us. Especially me!”. When I thanked them and started walking away, he made me promise to him one more time.

“Yes sir, I’ll follow the road. Don’t worry.” I said this with a straight face. I knew I was lying.

THINGS I WISHED FOR THAT MORNING

1) Foot Trails

2) River Crossings

3) Mountain Passes

I’ve finally found a  Foot Trail, with the first half a descent, passing through grasslands where pine tress were perfectly lined up. I even made a detour on a nearby cliff, and saw the river below. After that I ran like a child to finally reach the river.

The River Crossing wasn’t bad either. There was meadow leading to it, where tiny white flowers began to bloom. The current was not strong at all. With the cold water running through it, I was almost seduced to take a bath. On the other side were rice terraces carving a hill.

It was a pleasant 2 out of 3, but that was as good as it got. Because the Mountain Pass SCREWED me.

While on the river, I saw an old man on the other side, pounding away on his clothes with a thick peace of wood, the equivalent of soaking them on fabric softener. I shouted my question at him. “Where’s the trail to Tuel?”. He looked at me for a few seconds, then resumed pounding his clothes.

I thought maybe he doesn’t speak tagalog, but since there was no one around, I had to try again. So I tiptoed my way crossing the river and when I was a few paces away, I asked him again. “Tay, do you know where the trail to Trail to Tuel is?”.

He looked at me again, then stood up, wiping his wet hand on his shorts. He leaned his left ear at my direction. “Huh?”

So I asked him again. “Is there a trail here to Tuel?”

“Ah Tuel,” slowly nodding his head. “Duon”, he said as he pointed his finger at the end of the river, following the current. “You see that big pine tree there? There’s a trail going up, on the other side is Tuel.” he said softly, his tagalog was surprisingly good.

I looked at where he was pointing at. The river had massive blouders about two hundred meters away, and it seemed to drop into a few meters at the edge. On both sides, a steep terrain with thick vegetation flanked it creating a sharp V-shape that framed the sky. It was on the right side, the side we were at, that I saw the Big Pine Tree. The ascent seemed to be 500-600 meters in elevation, an hour on my calculation before I reached the top. I asked him again, just to make sure it was clear, adding hand gestures to our conversation.

I saw no doubt in his expression, so after refilling my water bottle on the river, I thanked him, and I quietly thanked all the deities for they blessed me with a tagalog speaking local exactly where I crossed the river.

Three hours later, I would be back at the very same river, quietly cursing the very same deities and forces I know of, politely complaining to the very same local that THERE IS NO TRAIL!

Or more accurately, there used to be, but it doesn’t exist anymore. The forest has taken it back.

The trail head does exist. I followed it up for half an hour, and despite being covered by dried leaves, it looked like a legitimate route. But little by little, as I got higher, the trail became thinner and thinner, until it vanished completely, and I found myself navigating around trees without a discernable foot path. It alternated from thick bushes, to tall grass, and while I was still covered by trees saving me from the sun, an itchy sensation penetrating my clothes was inescapable.

Logic should have dragged me back down to the river before I get myself even more lost, but the 8^th description about me is my ability to confuse my Uragon brand of fearlessness, with utter stupidity. I thought that maybe if I somehow reach the peak, maybe I’ll be able to see Tuel on the other side, and maybe I’ll regain my bearings, and maybe finding the trail again.

Equipped with this maybes, I continued climbing higher. The vegetation even got nastier. The branches seemed to strangle my advance at every direction that at one point I was trapped, forcing me to use my bare hands as improvised machete to whack my way through. But the itch I felt through out my body finally defeated my ego. Short of a miracle, I was able to find my way back to the river. I don’t know if I should be praised for my courage, or consider retaking my basic mountaineering course.

With my entire body submerged completely under water, waiting the river to wash away any trace of itch I sill felt, I contemplated about what the hell I was doing there. Just a week ago, I was drinking with 2 of my friends, proclaiming my impending solo trumping of Benguet. I was so full of myself. And now here I am, after just a single day of trekking, with one failed attempt of scaling a hill, and I was seriously considering going home. Pathetic.

to be continued...