Warrior Pilgrimage

Featured in www.pinoyapache.blogspot.com on December 1, 2008

“TOK-TOK-TOK, TOK-TOK-TOK, TOK-...”



My Nokia 2350 delivered its pre-set challenge at 4:30 AM. Grudgingly, I accepted the dare despite a swollen and stiff right knee and rustled myself up from my bed to the bathroom downstairs. It was the end of the Ramadan season, and an official holiday was declared which fell on October 1, 2008. I don't have to go to work today and Boy Toledo made sure of that by having me attend a scheduled day trek at 7:00 AM from Guadalupe to Mount Babag, whose trail we have climbed on August 17 and September 7. Which I repeated again solo on September 14.



Hurriedly, I stuffed all the things I need inside my Habagat waist bag: a clean t-shirt, plastic meal containers, spoon and fork, water and a Kodak C713 digital camera. I brought also a used pair of black leather shoes which my son have outgrown intending to give it away as a gift to a little boy up there in the hills. I hied a jitney for the downtown area then another for Guadalupe and reached there at 6:15 AM. Making a vacant time productive, I took pictures of the Virgen de Guadalupe Parish to include the beautiful tainted glass windows and the miraculous image of the Virgin Mary.



I went backdoor of the church towards an eatery and, surprise of surprises, from afar, I saw Ben Lao waiving and smiling at me. Then he made a hand gesture pointing at a guy to my right and I saw his brother, Matt. They were my climbing contemporaries of the early '90s and they were here to send off of what used to be the “climbing elite” of the Cebu Mountaineering Society or CeMS. Matt just came from Davao while Ben also just came from Batangas and they made known their intentions to me that they are staying here for good in Cebu.



Boy T arrived after me then Ernie Salomon and the last to come was Glenn Domingo, the Ubuntu Linux guy...READ MORE (CTRL + mouse click)