Making a mountain out of a molehill

The summer before I went away for college, a couple of friends and I set out for a three-day hike very much against my parents' preferences. I'd gone hiking before, but never long-term. We planned to scale Mt. Mandalagan in Silay (elevation according to various googled sites: 3,000 to 6,000 feet) and spend the night at Tinagong Dagat, a wide valley believed to be an old crater that turns into a lake during the rainy season and reverts back into a mossy plain during summer.

From Silay (a city about half an hour from Bacolod) we took a jeepney to an old hospital in Patag where the trail started. Everybody else had packs to carry, with the tents and stoves and food and water for ten people, and I had a tiny little backpack with a sleeping bag and I still had to stop a couple of times so they could load me up with more Red Bull.

Once, we stopped at a stream to wash up, and a dozen leeches with suckers at both ends of their body immediately attached themselves to my track pants. As night fell, we finally stopped at a clearing, built a bonfire, pitched our tents and slept uncomfortably atop twigs.

We got to Tinagong Dagat early in the morning and as the fog slowly lifted, I saw the most breathtaking sight.

This is Tinagong Dagat after a heavy downpour:



and on a sunny day:



We spent the day lounging and running around, the only people for miles. This was about ten years ago and everything felt untouched - our own little secret world. It was very Jurassic Park.

The descent was much easier and took quicker, with no more Red Bull breaks for me. For weeks afterward I felt closer to and hung out with the same group of people. I've never been back since and have lost touch with most of them.

I've been reading Bill Bryson's A Walk in the Woods and it brought back so many vivid memories of that summer - the rush of adrenaline I felt when we faced the first steep climb, my mother's rubber shoes caked with mud, my green parachute pants laid out to dry on top of a bush, the guy I had a crush on pulling me up an incline, standing in the middle of the plaza of Silay, grimy and skinny and smiling.

I've no photos of my own (they're in Bacolod) so I stole them here. And more here.

I've been tagged

Before anything else, a picture:



THREE NAMES THAT YOU GO BY:

1. Mel
2. Melai
3. Mimi

THREE SCREEN NAMES YOU HAVE HAD, INCLUDING THE ONE YOU NOW HAVE:

1. uglysullengirl
2. stamp_pad
3. that chick

THREE THINGS YOU LIKE ABOUT YOURSELF:

1. My hands
2. My ears
3. My undefeated adroitness at Jumble

THREE THINGS YOU HATE/DISLIKE ABOUT YOURSELF:

1. My paunch
2. Lately, my temper
3. My undefeated adroitness at Procrastination

THREE PARTS OF YOUR HERITAGE:

1. My paternal grandfather (who I never met) was a diligent bookkeeper for a cooperative put up by American missionaries (we still have his detailed journals of expenses and supplies)
2. My maternal grandfather was a farmer and founder of a Baptist church
3. My grandmother, my father, my sister and I stock back and current issues of Reader's Digest in the bathroom (for extended lavatory exercises such as waiting for the clay mask to dry, taking a crap, etc.)

THREE THINGS THAT SCARE YOU:

1. spiders too, Drey
2. creeps
3. highway accidents

THREE OF YOUR EVERYDAY ESSENTIALS:

1. Starbucks Bottled Mocha Frappuccino
2. Burt's Bees Beeswax Lip Blam
3. 1010 AM

THREE THINGS YOU ARE WEARING RIGHT NOW:

1. shorts
2. blue/green dragon shirt I bought in Texas
3. rice pearl necklace that an uncle gave me for college grad

THREE NEW THINGS YOU WANT TO TRY IN THE NEXT 12 MONTHS:

1. long distance driving
2. regular tennis
3. going back to school

TWO LIES AND A TRUTH:

1. The exterminator saw me naked.
2. My boyfriend has six fingers on his left hand.
3. I had to use the kitchen fire extinguisher tonight.

THREE THINGS YOU JUST CAN'T DO:

1. sleep early
2. jump rope
3. light a match

THREE OF YOUR FAVORITE HOBBIES:

1. reading!
2. playing instruments!
3. watching movies!

THREE THINGS YOU WANT TO DO REALLY BADLY RIGHT NOW:

1. sleep
2. go away
3. swim

THREE CAREERS YOU'RE CONSIDERING:

1. manager
2. programmer
3. musician

THREE PLACES YOU WANT TO GO ON VACATION:

1. Japan
2. France
3. Alaska

THREE TRUE LOVES:

1. music
2. books
3. coffee

THREE FAVORITE ANIMALS:

1. Smokey the family dog
2. Ricky the family bird
3. assorted sea creatures

THREE REASONS WHY YOU'RE DOING THIS:

1. I don't want to do what needs to be done.
2. I agree, every blog needs a survey - good, bad or indifferent.
3. Rocs, the survey Nazi.

THREE PEOPLE WHO MUST TAKE THIS QUIZ: (You’ve gotta tag two or three or four others.)

1. You
2. you, and
3. you.


Good night.