April 6, 2011 – Camiguin

Jess and I made plans to climb Hibok-Hibok volcano the next day. I wasn’t positive I wanted to do that. It seemed like a lot of hard work for very little reason. And, to be honest, I wasn’t sure that given my poor physical condition I could even do it. Volcanoes, I know from experience, are very difficult to climb. They are steep and their slopes are made up of scree. The final climb to the top can be a mad scramble through loose stone. It’s no fun at all. I thought it was worth a try, though, and we made our plans. We asked Janet to make us some sandwiches to take to the top for our lunch. I got three liters of water. We agreed to meet at 4:45 a.m. at a place on the main road where a road branches up toward the Ardent Hot Springs and then on to Hibok-Hibok. Such an early start was necessary to get clear views. Hibok-Hibok would be covered in cloud very early in the day no matter how clear it was.

When Jess and Maya left, it was only around 7:30. I did my packing for the volcano climb and then climbed into bed by 8:00. Getting up early is only a problem when you go to bed at your normal time. If you want to get up at 3:45 a.m., which I did, and you want to be rested and enjoy your day, well, you go to bed at 8:00 p.m., and that is what I did. I read for a few minutes, then turned off my headlamp and was soon asleep. My waterfall trip had taken it out of me and I was tired. I think I could have gone to sleep at 8 even without the volcano climb.

I woke up at around 1 a.m. to the sound of a heavy downpour. The last time it rained that heavily here, the rain continued right through most of the morning. I thought our trip would have to be cancelled, but when I woke up at 3:45, it wasn’t raining and as far as I could tell, the skies were somewhat clear. The great thing about going to bed so early was that I was as fully rested as if I’d gotten up at 9 a.m. So it was no hardship to shower and do my final preparations and head out the door. Even if we couldn’t climb the volcano, it was pleasant to be out and walking along the main road while nearly everyone was still sleeping. Some light rain seemed to fall on my face, but I thought it was coming from the trees and not from the clouds.

I arrived at our meeting point quite early, and I sat down at the side of the road to wait for Jess. It was nice to sit there in the dark and listen to big water drops fall off the palm tree leaves. An occasional dog trotted past on dog errands. One or two vehicles passed me and one or two people walked past casting a curious eye in the direction of the foreigner sitting at the side of the road. Even in the dark, a foreigner is easy to recognize.

When Jess arrived, we headed up the road toward the Ardent Hot Spring. It would have been better to get some kind of transport that first four or five kilometers, but there was nothing at that time of the morning. I quickly began to think that I was in trouble. Jess set a very fast pace. My normal pace would have been half what he set. I did my best to keep up, trusting that that pace would eventually slow to something more reasonable, and it did. However, I was really feeling it in my legs, and I began to wonder if this volcano climb was such a great idea. In the end, the choice was taken away from me. The skies opened once more and rain came crashing down. Looking up, I thought I had seen clearing skies. Jess did, too. But we were wrong. The dark skies up there were nothing but clouds and the rain came down. This meant two things. The first was that the paths would probably be impassable in this kind of rain. It would be far too slippery and muddy to climb up the volcano. The second was that even if we powered through the rain and mud, there would be almost no point to it. We would be climbing up into nothing but mist and cloud. We wouldn’t be able to see anything around us let alone any scenic vistas of the whole island.

We agreed that the great Hibok-Hibok climb was a no-go. I was secretly delighted by that. I had already gotten a lot out of our plans. I liked getting up so early and I enjoyed the hour-long walk up the volcano’s slope talking with Jess. And when we got to the Ardent Hot Springs resort, we found that even before six a.m. the restaurant was open, and we could sit out the rain and enjoy a cup of coffee and some breakfast. It could not possibly have worked out better. We had some thoughts about making the best of our cancelled climb by going for a soak in the hot springs. However, the heavy rain meant that the springs were closed. The water pressure in the natural springs was so great with all this rain that a large amount of mud and debris was forced into the springs. That doesn’t make sense to me, but it didn’t matter what I thought. The springs were closed. But the restaurant was open and I had a great breakfast and we had a great conversation about traveling.

We made our way back down the volcano slope continuing our conversation. The rain came and went. At one point, the top of Hibok-Hibok was visible in stark relief against the dark sky, and I breathed an internal sigh of happiness that we weren’t going to attempt that climb. What I saw was an impossibly steep slope. It looked tough – much, much tougher than I had expected. It didn’t look like a climb you undertook casually. Perhaps there was an easy route, but what I saw looked very steep. I had gotten a pleasant early-morning walk, breakfast, and conversation out of our expedition, and I was content with that. I’m content to leave Hibok-Hibok unclimbed.

We parted at the main road, Jess to go back to Villa Forte to sleep, me to have a cup of coffee and write this down. It doesn’t look like the sun is going to come out today, but the rain has eased off, and it looks like a nice day is shaping up. I’m going to read for a while, and then I think I’m going to visit a couple of places I’ve heard about, such as the Enigmata Treehouse and Sculpture Garden Ecolodge. Jess and Maya visited a marine center on Kabila White Beach and they raved about it. The snorkeling was great, and they cultivate giant clams there. The clams were more than a meter across. I will save that for a day when the sun is out. I have perhaps four more days here.

 

My big project for the day after the aborted climb up Hibok-Hibok, was to make good on a promise I made to send someone a postcard. I wasn’t even sure that there would be any postcards on Camiguin. For the first four or five days, I didn’t see any anywhere. But on my motorcycle trip, I found some damp specimens in a rack in a shop opposite the ruins of the Catholic church. I chose one and yesterday, I wrote a message to her and then I went in search of a post office. I decided to walk into Mambajao again, and I set off on foot in the hot sun.

I did that walk on my first day here, and on that day, I was struck by everything. Everything amazed me. Now, just a few days later, I was surprised to see how easily I accepted it. It was all normal already.

I mentioned the place where they made cement blocks in their front yard. They were hard at work when I went by this time, and I stopped to chat. One of the men told me that one person could make about 300 blocks a day. They use a simple single mold for the blocks. They simply put it on a big chunk of wood for a flat surface, shovel in some cement and sand, pound it in with a shaped piece of wood, then put it on the ground and lift it up. That’s all there is to it. I’m not sure that I would trust these blocks to build my house, but I guess they get the job done. I suppose it all depends on the quality of the cement mixture they’re using.

I wasn’t surprised to find that my name had already spread far and wide. You’d be amazed at how fast this happens. I’ve seen it in many countries around the world. On my first walk, I’d stopped to talk to a group of young guys lounging under a tree. They asked me to take their picture and they asked me my name and where I was from. I had two other brief chats with people that day and they all asked me for my name. Now as I walked around, everyone knows me already. And, as always, the pronunciation had shifted to Dooooooglas with a long comical “o” in the middle. “Hello, Dooooooglas!” “Hello my friend Doooooooglas!” Perhaps just saying Dooooooglas is lots of fun?

It was hot under the sun, but I didn’t mind and I kept walking. In Mambajao, I was informed that the post office was outside the city about a kilometer and a half away. I kept trudging. I smiled when I found it. It looked like a movie set, like something out of colonial days. It was a tiny cement structure sitting all by itself. And inside was a timeless scene: four men sitting at big tables piled high with documents. And they were laboriously writing things out by hand on big ledgers and pads using carbon paper to make copies. The pace of work was so slow. The fan was creaking above them moving the hot air hardly at all. I almost wanted to say, “Are you kidding me? Is this a joke? Where’s the camera?” I felt I’d gone back in time a hundred years.

Postage on my postcard was 23 pesos. The man handed me the stamps and I licked them and carefully applied them. Then I handed him my postcard, thanked him, and turned away. As I turned, he shouted at me loudly and told me to come back. Why? He wanted me to witness him applying the postmark over all the stamps. That, apparently, is standard operating procedure to prevent theft. Filipinos, I’m sure, would insist on seeing the postmark applied so they’d know that the postal workers wouldn’t, the second their backs were turned, remove the stamps and sell them a second time for personal profit.

I thought I might continue my walk to the Enigmata Treehouse and Ecolodge, but I found out it was still a kilometer or two away and I was tired. I stopped for a cold drink at a small place beside the road. I noticed there another group of men intently playing chess. I’d seen chess being played everywhere. That is a new thing for the Philippines. I’d never seen that before. Two men were playing, and they even had the timer going. A circle of men stood around them watching. It was a very serious thing going on.

Bathrooms are always a surprise in this part of the world. Going to the bathroom is not something to be taken lightly. At this place, I got up and went in search of anything that might resemble a bathroom. I turned a corner and saw a door ahead of me with CF on it – the comfort room. It was through a doorway into a roofed-in area in the back. I took a three or four steps in that direction and then I stopped dead. Across the doorway lay what looked like a large brown bear. It turned out to be a German Shepherd about the size of a bear. I was hardly going to step over this animal and trust that it wouldn’t tear my foot off at the ankle. So I made a clucking noise at it with my tongue and this creature leaped to its feet, tail wagging like crazy and began to give me a tongue bath. Its name was Shadow the owners told me. Shadow was a stinky dog, but he was healthy and happy and very friendly. I’ve been pleased to see that nearly all the dogs on Camiguin are like that. I don’t know if the dogs wandering around free are strays, but even if they are, they are cared for. They are well-fed and clean and unafraid of humans. Any kind of gesture will bring them running up to be petted. Dogs in Taiwan, as I may have mentioned, are usually in a sorry state and they are not used to strangers at all. They will not come up to people they don’t know. Taiwanese are very timid when it comes to animals and are scared of everything. The odd thing is that they will eat pretty much any animal on the planet. They just don’t want to get near them when they’re still alive. And speaking of food, the food in the Philippines has not gotten any better since my last visit. I’d have to say that Filipino cuisine is the worst in the world. I’ve seen nothing that comes close. There simply is no cuisine. I don’t think I’ve seen a vegetable beyond a sliced tomato since I arrived. It makes you wonder how cuisines develop. In Taiwan, there are thousands upon thousands of different dishes. In the Philippines, there is little but fish, rice, and chicken. I ordered the Filipino breakfast this morning, and that consists of rice and corned beef from a can.

After my trip to the post office, I walked back to Jasmin by the Sea. It was crazy from the point of view of the Filipinos. Like the Taiwanese, they would never walk unless they had to. I would guess it was 7 kilometers to the post office and 7 kilometers back. For me, that isn’t far when there is so much to see along the way. And the alternative is to be jammed inside a tricycle with barely room to breathe. So I walked.

I had a few interesting chats along the way. On my first walk, a man named Allen gave me his phone number and urged me to call him if I wanted a guide for a climb up Hibok-Hibok. He actually heard from someone else that Dooooooglas was out walking again, and he jumped on the back of a motorcycle to find me. He tracked me down before I’d even gotten to the post office. Then he found me again on my way back. I had to tell him that I wasn’t going to be climbing any volcanoes. He offered me help in doing pretty much anything on the island, but I had to disappoint him.

I also spoke to a man lounging in the shade underneath a roofed structure. His name was Jose Lupez, and he seemed to collect foreigners. He was a rice farmer and had some land not far from where he was lounging. His English was good and he was a long-winded story-teller. I had trouble following his tales, but I passed an enjoyable thirty or forty minutes listening to him. He knew all the foreign long-term residents of Camiguin and he urged me passionately to follow their example. He knew of beautiful young women eager to marry, of land for sale, of men willing to build my house, of houses I could rent, and of ways I could pass my time pleasantly when I settled down here to live.

Back at Jasmin by the Sea, I was pretty tired from the hot sun. I thought Maya and Jess might show up for a farewell drink. I wasn’t sure I was up to it, though. I was wiped out. I had dinner and then read for a while and then went to bed. I woke up this morning to the sound of pounding rain. The rain has stopped now, though and the sun has come out. I’m going to rent a motorcycle and do some more exploring. I’m not sure if I will return to Mantigue Island, but that seems the natural thing to do. I will have to pay for the entire boat myself for 550 pesos. That is expensive for the Philippines, but coming from Taiwan, it seems like the bargain of a lifetime. That would be perhaps 400 NT dollars, and if you could get a private boat to a paradise island for 400 dollars in Taiwan, you are very lucky!

Tags: Camiguin Trip, Hibok Hibok, post office, Taiwan