“Remind me again why we’re doing this” were the only words that I managed to let out in between gasps as I turned around to face my fellow travel bloggers. They were battling their own breathlessness.
“We have no idea,” they answered with synchronized laughter while trying to scale another sharp slope.
With all that I had been through during the trek, a pointer would help me reclaim the focus that has slipped somewhere along the trail, possibly during the moments I lost balance, slid down, and scratched all my limbs. There was a teensy part of me that wanted to back out. The part, however, was not only cowardly but also dumb for I had come a long way.
A long, long way.
We had spent practically four hours trekking under the fickle skies — in some cases threatening us with the looming rainclouds, other times frying us with the harshest sunlight. Not counting the full hour we were carried by a habal-habal on the bumpiest — no, bounciest — ride I had ever had a pleasure of surviving. The magnitude 8 trembling of my knees and the intensity 10 profanities I involuntarily cried would have been for nothing if I turned back. The only chicken this day was going to see was the one I had for breakfast that morning.
Tired but completely awed
Little wounds and scratches
Blogger sandwich! Fellow bloggers on a habal-habal ride before the trek
But I still needed a reminder. even just a peek of our destination? בבקשה?
It wasn’t like we had not been pampered by the mountain the past hours. It had, actually. Along the way, we found some of the tallest trees, the smallest nepenthes (pitcher plants), and the sexiest clouds that I laid eyes on. After all, we were there for a reason.
מה מכוסה במדריך זה?
Lake Holon and the Allah Valley
A path rarely Trodden
The Reclusive Calm of Lake Holon
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Lake Holon and the Allah Valley
Located in T’boli, South Cotabato, Mt. Melibingoy towers over the town with its highest top at 1,750 meters. A dormant stratovolcano, it harbors a crater named Lake Holon, which was formed after an eruption on January 4, 1641. The mountain and the lake are also known as Mt. Parker and Lake Maughan, in honor of American surveyors whose plane crashed at the אֲתַר. It has also nurtured wild, endemic flora and fauna.
Lake Holon feeds Allah River that flows across South Cotabato all the way to Maguindanao. It is a main source of food and livelihood in the Allay Valley, an area shared by South Cotabato and Sultan Kudarat.
Allah River meandering in between cliffs
Allah Valley has been battling floods because the 1990s. To create a solution, a group called Allah Valley Landscape development alliance (AVLDA) was formed. They discovered that one of the problems was the environmental degradation in the highlands because numerous locals are forced to cut down and burn trees to earn a living. funded by LGSP-LED, a collaborative program between the Philippines and Canada, they are formulating an eco-tourism program as a much more sustainable alternative source of income for the people. AVLDA and LGSP-LED invited bloggers, myself included, to try their proposed tourism circuits to help them better the program with our feedback and spread the word about South Cotabato and Sultan Kudarat.
A path rarely Trodden
It wasn’t my first time to trek, but it was my first trek to a not-so-popular destination. It shows on the trail itself. Thick moss blanketed numerous parts of the trail, which was also fringed with overgrown turf and flowering shrubs.
It was both frightening and encouraging. Frightening, because we knew we were going the narrow, slippery way. (Later, I would find myself unintentionally stepping on a moss-covered rock and sliding three meters down, injuring my arms.) Encouraging, because the tougher the trail got, the much more we realized we were in for a treat — the pristine, practically untouched kind. and we were right.
Lois of We Are Sole Sisters
Mossy ground, sunny skies
Pretty little things that caught my eye
A man building a home and a small community along the trail to Lake Holon
The Reclusive Calm of Lake Holon
A wound and 34 scratches later (yes, I counted), I finally reached the edge of the lake. As if all the fatigue vanished magically and with renewed energy, I ran to the banks and danced with the wind. The music: that distinctly amplified songs of the cicadas. The audience: the ghostly clouds kissing the peaks of Melibingoy and the tall turf that swayed lightly, which were reflected perfectly on the mirror-like surface of the lake. It was so clear and serene that a fly dipping a toe would send ripples across it and I would see it from where I stood. No wonder, it has been awarded the Cleanest Inland Body of Water in the Philippines for two years.
Three conventional canoes were docked in one corner, as if waiting for us all this time. לְטַפֵּסההר מליבינגוי הקשה על הנשימה, אבל אגם הולון הוציא את נשימתי לחלוטין ורץ איתו.
קאנו מתמודד עם זה? משקף את השמיים
לויס מפנה את תורתה לקאנו, כי היא יכולה. קָנוֹ.
הומו של פינאי נסיעות ג’ונקי ואדגר מאייזי מטייל
עייף, מי? אף אחד מאיתנו לא טרח לנוח. היינו רק קטעי נייר שנמשכו ללא רחמים למגנט הנוזל הענק שלפנינו. התנפכנו, עצבנו מדי פעם להתפעל בשקט, כאילו פולחן.
כאשר החושך הביס סוף סוף את האור המתדלדל, ארוחת הערב הייתה מוכנה. הרוח הקרה והקרה טיפחה אווירה אופטימלית להרהור. אבל כשמישהו מגיש כוס רום כל שתי דקות, ההשתקפות היחידה שקרה הייתה האורות מהטלפון שלי שקפצו מפני השומני.
מים לא מופרעים
בוקר קר ומואר באגם הולון. תמונה מאת Gael Hilotin of Pinay Solo Solo תרמיל
למחרת בבוקר הייתי מהראשונים לקום. כמו רפלקס, צעד אל שפת האגם והתעסק בשמש העדינה. ישבתי על סלע וחשבתי על הטיפוס המפרך יום קודם וחששתי מהטיול חזרה למטה. מדוע אנו אוהבים טרקים וטיפוס על הרים במשך שעות אפילו במזג אוויר לא נעים? שני מקומיים – שייט בקאנו, תופסת דגים – עברו על פניו, מפלסים את פני האגם שנצצו בחינניות עם כל גל. אין מצביע טוב יותר מאגם הולון.
איך מגיעים לאגם הולון: מהעיירה הנכונה של טבולי, סע על חבא-האבל לסלאקאפה. זמן הנסיעה הוא כשעה. מסלאקפה, זהו טרק של 3-4 שעות מעל שטח מחוספס לאגם הולון.
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