finale...Durungawan

Six hours! Six hours passed before we finally finished the climb up to Durungawan. The first thing that I expected to see is the store with overflowing food waiting for us to devour! It was a promise meant to be broken! No food and no stores! But still we are fortunate that a group of young students stayed for a while at Durungawan and they are currently cooking their food! We shared our food. We still have canned goods left, the remaining food we reserved for the summit. I actually don’t remember eating the canned goods but for the first time in my life….I ate rice with salt and grilled onion! I never mind my food but just to satisfy my hunger. Immediately after we ate, others started to lie down in the tent of the young students. I saw a buddy sitting at the edge of the cliff looking at the majestic view of the Mt Banahaw summit. I sit beside him and stared at the beauty of the mountain! The cold wind and the surroundings ease my body pain and for a while I forgot all the hardships we’ve been through while climbing up. I also lie down to rest but just for while since the group of young students started to inform us that they will be going down to Kinabuhayan in a while and have to packed their things including the tent. I didn’t hesitate to respond that we will also be going down with them but others in our group still wanted to continue resting. I insisted on joining with the group of students since they know the trail going down to Kinabuhayan and besides they have their strength to guide us through. Finally, we will all be going back to Kinabuhayan!

Going down is as hard as going up. I have to use my knees to control my steps. The pain almost stop me most of the time but a young student told us that we should not be minding it so I started to run down the trail thru my buddy’s help. It is effective! The more I enjoy it, the easier my steps become. I even saw the young students playing around and fell but they are just laughing about it. What a sight! Life is still beautiful! It’s already getting dark and we have only one flashlight and a “gasera”, which was given by an old man we met while climbing up. The two things lighted our way down but still the creepy sound around bothers me and my buddy even adds up to my fear when he told me that a certain tree in Mt Banahaw is a home to “Kapre”.  I started to pray in silence and believe that no one can harm us because my Lord is the Lord of all lords…God of the living and the dead! I believe and have faith that He is good and is the same yesterday, today and tomorrow and no matter how I have been so busy minding my own life…God is just right there seeing me even in the dark or maybe even walking with me in the midst of darkness until I would feel him again.

We reached Kinabuhayan faster than expected. We didn’t expect that we can still have our things intact in the tent since it’s already very late at night and somebody might have stolen our things but God is good! Nobody touched our things and our tent! No trace of someone getting in to steal! Indeed, it is a holy mountain! It is still God’s place! We immediately packed our things and went back to Manila. We are so exhausted as we travel back to Manila. Everyone is quiet and asleep until we reached Manila.

The pain was still there the next morning but I was happy that we are alive and nobody was hurt. I took a day off and that’s when my mother visited me at the boarding house. She told me that they are very worried about my whereabouts because they cannot contact me and then awhile later she called my father to tell him that I’m ok. We have our lunch together and there I started to tell my mother about my mountain experience. The story telling doesn’t end there. We shared it to our officemates and friends. We have a post climb meeting where lots of realization came in. One major realization that I cannot forget from an atheist hiker friend is that…it is God’s providence that saves us! I don’t know if they were converted by the experience but I just want to believe so because they started to speak about God. It was very unlikely that…we met the hikers going down using the path going up and become our food source, an old man we met that gave us “gasera” that we thought we don’t need coz it is still morning, and a group of young students in the summit still cooking their food and as if they are angels sent by God to feed us and guide the way down. All these are blessings that only God can plan and provide! I thank God so much because this became the start of my deep longing to renew my spiritual life.

Do you think this experience stops us from climbing again? No!  especially knowing after that Mt Banahaw is one of the major climb! First climb… First major climb! It was a suicide we don’t know! We planned to climb another mountain again, this time with real hikers with hiking gears, itinerary, and warm ups. There are no failures only lessons learned! In fact, my experience in Mt Banahaw is one of my treasured memories. I have not written it until now. It was stored in my mind and in my heart! Every time I am experiencing life difficulties, I would always play the scene going up…no matter how hard my steps are… Don’t forget to breathe! Mind one step at a time! ...soon it will be over and I will reach the top! 

;Des

Thanks for travelling with me on my first climbing experience. Feel free to comment and become my climbing blog follower. Till my next climbing experience!