Unintended Masochist

I started my day thinking, "Today, I'm gonna relax. Yesterday did me in and my muscles hurt. I'm just going to take the serenity, solitude, and beauty of this place and enjoy it." I walked away from the "restaurant" near which I had set up my tent, down the path, and a large millipede was there to greet me. Venomous but almost never do they hurt humans. I went down to the lake, filled my water bottles, and walked the trail along Lake Balinsasayo to Lake Danao. The trail here is beautiful, slippery boulders are laid out for a path or steps up and down. I walked to the end of the trail and a little picnic bungalow that overlooks both lakes. Then I noticed the trail keeps going, sort of. I had heard of a waterfall on the other side of the lake but didn't want to spend 800 pesos to kayak across the lake to get there. When asked if one could walk around, the locals replied there are plans for a trail but otherwise you need a guide. The trail in front of me was not lined with walking stones, but it was still obvious and clear. Not being one for rules or trails in general, I figured this trail was just what I was hoping the hiking would be. So I continued on.

The stone-lined trail passes under those roots!

I was thrilled to continue because the farther away from the slightly developed side of the lake I got, the more beautiful plants and wildlife I saw. The flowers and plants are completely foreign to me. The spiders are unique and of all shapes and sizes. The butterflies are ineffably beautiful here. So much variety in size and color, and so many of them - I haven't seen anything like it even in a butterfly sanctuary. The sounds of the bugs, frogs, and some birds that could be heard and seen were loud throughout. I often felt the tickle of some spider's line I had accidentally walked through, but at one point, my face ran into a web that didn't break. It felt like i had walked into thin fishing line and wasn't going to break. So, I stop mid-step, back up, thankful that the web didn't stick to my face and pull something terrible down upon me. I was expecting that something out of Arachnophobia would speed down and attempt to encircle my head in a cocoon. The spider was smart, though, and headed up to the branches. It was, simply gigantic. As big as any tarantula, but with chitinous exoskeleton; a shiny black and yellow that was hard to capture in the distance. I was thoroughly impressed and humbled by that creature and the beautiful, huge web it had created. I squeezed through a hole underneath and continued on.

Eventually, the trail split into two. I could hear a waterfall-sounding creek just ahead, and the lower route seemed to end at the lake, so I took the upper route. It was slippery and muddy, the beginning of the impassibility soon to come, but this little side trip to nowhere did bring me to a beautiful view of the lake and a beautiful wild orchid, which I noticed only on the way down, and only after I hit my head on a huge, heavy snail curled up in a big tropical leaf. Stopped to look at it and then the orchid's loud beauty called up from below.

Took the lower route back at the split and made it to the creek. I followed the creek up to many small waterfalls. Satisfied with the beauty and satisfied I had made it to the other side of the lake in about 2 hours, I saw I had tons of daylight left, and saw that the trail seemed to follow the shoreline of the lake. After some internal deliberation, I figured that even if the trail got dicey, it probably ended back where I started, so I continued on.

Somehow when I saw it, bananas came to mind...?

An hour later, the trail had dissolved into an impassible tunnel through the jungle that obviously only the free-roaming goats of the area used. Already 2/3 the way around the lake, it seemed easier to hug the shoreline and keep going than to go all the way back the way I cam. Plus, it was a somewhat interesting challenge like a jungle gym keeping my feet on scraggly roots of the sheer rock face dropping into the water, swinging around and through clusters of trees that stuck out of the cliff face over the water. I kept telling myself that the next bend was second to last, or the last one, so I continued on.

Then the shoreline became impassible, and I slipped several times, feet in the water almost up to my waste hanging onto the tree so keep myself from falling in. I would have just swam at that point, but I had a backpack with a camera in it, so that was out of the question. I had nowhere to go but up. At that point, I was feeling desperately tired and frustrated, so I climbed up and down faces hundreds of times steeper and more densely forested than the other side of the lake. Thorny vines, aggressive, biting ants wherever I fell to my hands and knees. Keeping my bandanna over my burn was extremely difficult. Many times I was so entangled that I couldn't even swing my knife (somewhere between a machete and a hunting knife) to cut them. I was soaked to the bone with sweat and mud and water. Spider webs were becoming a thin coating around me, every tree or plant I used to stop me from slipping down a perilous face left deep gashes or thorns in my hands. My clothes got more ripped every minute. Each slope, each creek I followed up to a dead end, each bend in the shoreline HAD to be the last one. Stubbornly, I continued on.

What seemed like 24 hours passed, and the sun finally went down. I learned long ago to be ready for absolutely anything, and this time, I would have been in serious trouble without my headlamp. Once last light had passed, I could see the eyes of every spider in the landscape reflecting back. All shapes and sizes, in the night, they looked like the starry night sky above me. At one point a local snake, brown, venomous and aggressive slithered out of my path at lightning speed. I was desperate to simply end the torture, to arrive in one piece, to get into my bed, and sleep. But after each turn, there was another, and another, and another. I contemplated trying to sleep in the hillside, but it was simply to dangerous and I wouldn't be able to sleep. I took short breaks and then pushed through the physical and emotional strain in the same way I was pushing through the vegetation. I was so close to giving up for a very long time. I continued on and on until I finally made it to the dock where I started. I cried with frustration and relief for quite some time. I took off all my clothes and swam in the lake, letting its clean, life-filled water wash away the mud and pain. Once I had gathered myself, I washed my clothes and shoes and walked up in just my shorts carrying everything with me up the hill to my bed.

I checked the time before I went to sleep, and it was around midnight. It took me 2 hours to get to the other side of the lake, and 10 hours to come back around the other side. Then I slept. I slept for 36 hours straight until noon of the next day, waking only to eat, drink, and poop. My mind, my torn body, and my spirit needed the rest so badly. Luckily, the people and the landscape were beautiful, forgiving, and healing. That day was one of the most if not the most difficult day I've put myself through. It's so much easier when you know what you're getting yourself into. That's the beauty of uncertainty and chaos, though, you simply don't know, and it's always a surprise. Gift or curse, life is uncertainty in its essence.

After I woke up, I said goodbye to two friends I had made there, packed up camp, and walked back down the mountain, happy to be headed on to something else. The walk took only 3 hours or so down, and I set up camp in the same place I had when I went up. The same man greeted me in the morning, and we went for a swim in the ocean before I packed up to leave for Dumaguete.  I'm currently working on a song called "Gonna be sore in the morning". I'll let you know how it turns out. Till next time, signing off... :-D