Kalinga By Foot

Sunlight peered over our window pane as it kissed the ridge opposite us. Rice, steamed river ferns, and brewed barako coffee greeted us in the morning. Breakfast could not have been more nourishing to body and soul. Here in the Philippines, food is everything. In Indigenous Kalinga, Westernized Manila or on a scarcely populated island, food is language, life, and love. For the Barangay Captain to not have food for his unexpected guests would send a message of contempt. It pained him that he had nothing more to offer, but we couldn't have felt more blessed. 

Morning revealed that our final resting place for the night was one of a row of houses hanging over a sheer cliff. If I could look through the floor where we slept, we would've seen where our cliff met the Chico River in the gorge far below. After breakfast, the locals encouraged me to wait for my kin, a Californian who resided two doors down from us, but we didn't have hours to wait for her to return from her week-long hiatus from home. Hours can quickly turn to days in a land where the only things you can count on are family, home, and food. Leave those behind, and you'll find that the land has its own time -- immutable and inescapable. 

As a trio, Dominika, Piotrek, and I determined to hitchhike the rest of the way to the town of Balbalan. After all, the journey is the experience. The destination is, well, incentive to journey. Balbalan is the jump off for the infamous road linking Kalinga and Abra, the two most wild provinces in the Cordillera Mountains. 

Very few vehicles exist as far north as we had traveled. The only gasoline was in Bontoc, long behind us. A short ride left us in a small town several kilometres down the road, where we were lucky to flag down a new pickup headed our way. 

The driver wasn't a talker, mostly because he was insecure about his English. He also seemed very serious or static though he was plenty nice. We did ascertain that he was the driver for the Mayor of Balbalasan, which is rooted at the junction for routes east, west, and south. 

Driving is excruciatingly slow on these routes cut into the sides of steep mountains. They would make better horse trails than roads. Boulders, plants, mud, and gravel make 4WD essential to passage. We approached Balbalasan in the late afternoon, when the ridge to the west was silhouetted on the opposite side of the valley. It was the most beautiful view I have ever seen. A tear escaped from sheer awe. The two ridges met far in the distance, angular greens sprinkled with sparkling rice terraces and tin rooftops. I was happy I didn't have a camera if only because a photograph would be an insult to the grandeur and memory of that place. 

Though he hadn't said much the whole way, our driver insisted we pass by the junction for our road and visit the Mayor. Though eager to move on and find a campsite, we obliged. We had ridden in the mayor's car after all. We pulled up to Municipal Hall, which was buzzing with activity. People coming and going, we waited outside his office until he finished a conversation. All genuine smiles and masculine action, he welcomed us in and before we could speak a word showed us to the food. We were the first to fill our plates with pandit noodles, a condensed milk jello, and a local mascobado sticky rice, all astoundingly good. The occasion? We arrived in time to kick off the office celebration of a clerk's marriage the day before. 

Once everyone had shovelled down a few mouthfuls, there was air to tell stories. We explained how we had come to arrive in his office at such a strange hour, where we were from, where we were headed. I spoke mostly with the mayor himself, projecting endless gratitude. Small talk, names, and stories quickly led to exchange of names and family history. When he heard my name, he said, short and sweet, "I'm your uncle." "What?" "You have an uncle named Victorino in Tabuk City [a distant relative I knew existed to the east but didn't have the time to visit]. He and I are fourth cousins, but we grew up as brothers." My jaw fell agape at the bizarreness of the world. I was in Kalinga to be as far away from technology and familiarity as possible, and here was related to the Mayor, our beneficiary, and brother to the Governor of Kalinga Province (who must also be a far-removed uncle). His English was better than any I've heard since from native Filipinos. He was down to earth, honest, and composed -- a living contradiction to the bumbling, dishonest weirdos who usually find themselves in such an office here. Conversation was smooth and frank. He was impressed the fact that I had gone so deep into the Philippines. 

The Kalinga-Abra Road

In the midst of the chaos, he had somehow arranged a ride for us aways along the Kalinga-Abra Road. A crew from the Muni Hall were headed to his brother, the governor's rest home by the river where they would hunt for crawfish in the night. Crawfish are very hard to see during the day but their eyes sparkle like diamonds under flashlights in the night. We passed hissing waterfalls and heard honking hornbills from the bed of the pickup that bounced us along. Our mutual destination was shrouded beneath the shadow of a new moon that had been black for hours when we arrived. We slept on the wooden floor of that nearly vacant, beautiful home and woke at 3am to begin the trek over the next portion of road. 

Sunrise from the Kalinga-Abra Rd

Privincial Boundary

We would have been lucky to see any sort of vehicle pass our way in a week, and we had to walk fast to catch the jeep down the mountain in the town on the other side. We had to walk fast in the dark, early morning because that festive pressure, that looming deadline called Christmas shone upon our all-too-near future. Time was budgeted to be barely enough for our plans. Even though we moved quickly with heavy packs on our backs, we weren't going to have time to catch jeep. So I cruised ahead and walked the rest of the way solo to catch the jeep.

View from the Ridge

Simply gorgeous, crossing the provincial border between Kalinga and Abra at the peak of the ridgeline. I was happy to be moving alone but I grew tired by the end. That morning we walked 25-30km at break-neck (walking) speed through some of Asia's most untouched and beautiful country so that we could appease the Christmas spirits. And… 

We missed the jeep. But we were met at our destination town and we were given free lunch of noodles at a restaurant that likes to take care of travellers who came from the mountains. We were blissfully thankful for the food and we gulped it all down with finality. We took showers and chatted with an ex-professor about mines and other resource extraction policies in the Philippines. He knew of my uncle Danilo in Baguio because they taught at the same university for a time. He was visiting family for the holidays but needed to head back to the city for work. Finally, a cement truck was taking off for the lowlands and we hopped on. 

Cement Truck Bus

I've done my share of hitchhiking, but never have I hitched with a cement truck. Piotrek and I stood hanging onto the sides or sat on the steps to the top when vegetation wasn't too low. Dominika sat in the cab. Only a kilometer down the road, we had to pull over to fix a rubber tube that had popped off behind the truck engine. Up and rolling 30 mins later, only to have a tire explode from underneath me. A quick stop to see it was only one of five tires on my side. Later, another blew on Piotr's side, and yet another on my side. Three tires left out of ten, and a worker hanging out the passenger cab to hold the tube in place, and we were still rolling down the mountain at a brisk pace. The heat grew excruciating as we descended, and we knew we were near our final stop when the road metamorphosed from ludicrous to paved in an instant. 

The three of us were a little worse for the wear by the end of the 3-hour journey down. Dominika was roasting, fumigated in the cab with three chiseled labourers who occasionally glanced sideways to get a look at the pretty white girl. The balls of my feet were badly bruised, I was scraped up by vegetation, and burnt to a crisp by the sun. Piotr was in similar condition. Our headaches demanded silence, clean air, and a cool breeze. Instead, we had to disembark near the downtown of a hot, bustling city close to the coast. Slowly, we built the energy to look for food, water, and solace. We hopped a bus headed farther west and had it drop us near a beach to camp. 

Thirsty, tired, and hungry, Piotrek savored a dip in the ocean, and Dominika and I rested in the sand. Some locals blessed us with full water bottles, a warm gift from a small, poor fishing outpost. We worked our way down the beach to a less populated area, set up camp, and started a fire. Hot dinner, stories, and early sleep under the stars were the order of the day. We had arrived at the coast more or less on time and dazed by the sudden major change of scenery from the cool, quiet mountains to the hot, busy lowlands. Only four days to Christmas...

Dinner