Warrior Pilgrimage

Featured in www.pinoyapache.blogspot.com on March 15, 2010.

THERE IS A PROMISE of a hot day today, October 4, 2009, as me and my guest, Wil Rhys Davies aka CochiseRattlesnake, walked the concrete-and-asphalt road at 8:15 AM from Guadalupe to Napo. Will is a Welsh national who opted to live here in Cebu and put up an adventure-tour business – Jungle Wild Adventure, Inc. He had been living in Banilad since February and we crossed paths at the Tap Room of the Gustavian Restaurant on September 29 after he surfed and contacted me in the Internet in my dormant MyOpera blog and in my very active Blogger account.

We reached Napo at nine and crossed the first river crossing. Wil liked the idea of crossing streams stepping on stones placed across its width. “Only in the jungles will you find these”, he said and I surely agree with that. We both laughed. He is a good-natured guy and willing to take the risk of walking behind me along a trail that followed the bends and turns of the Sapangdaku River. He slowly learned a few Cebuano words of greeting from me and he waved and smiled as we meet locals going the other way. As we walked, I showed to him plants and fruit trees that are very useful for survival.

We rested after we made the second river crossing and Wil was sweating all over and was dripping with it – literally! His bush shirt and long walking pants were a mass of brine-soaked fabric and he kept wiping his face with a handkerchief. I drank from a nearby spring and filled my water bottle then we started to climb a trail passing along a small flower farm and into an upland community...READ MORE (Press CTRL + mouse click)