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(Rodsky's Solo Sojourns #1: Gumasa, Glan, Sarangani Province)

After a bit of procrastination, I finally decided to go to Gumasa, at the very (literal) bottom of Mindanao Island. It's a stretch of fine white sandy beaches about 10 kilometers from the sleepy town of Glan, in Sarangani Province.

Apart from the obvious R & R objective, I've been planning a trip to the Glan area for a while now, to do some serious observation and photography of the Large Magellanic Cloud, a formation of stars that lies outside our Milky Way galaxy (there's also a smaller one called, for obvious reasons, the Small Magellanic Cloud). It's only visible in very low latitudes if you're in the Northern Hemisphere, and apart from Jolo, Sulu, Glan is an ideal spot to do some astrophotography of the LMC and SMC.

I boarded a commuter van from KCC Mall in General Santos City. The fare was at PHP 80.00 (according to the old lady who sat next to me, it increased recently from PHP 70.00), and it was a lazy, uneventful one hour trip on fair roads (none of the usual roadworks that have been happening around Mindanao highways). The sky was gloomy when the van left Gen San, but it wasn't raining...yet. I had the Pet Shop Boys blasting in my headphones all the way from Gen San to Glan. Upon reaching the outskirts of Glan, it started to drizzle and this gradually increased to a steady pitter-patter. This started to drown out any ideas I had of sleeping on the sand on the beach in my sleeping bag.

When I arrived at the Glan Terminal Site, the tricycle drivers started to approach me and haggle--they could probably tell I was headed for Gumasa--I was wearing a pair of woodland camo trousers rolled up to my knees, a silly Homer Simpson "Leonardo da Vinci" T-shirt, and my Sandugos, and on my back was my backpack with sleeping bag rolled up on top. I had two cameras dangling from my neck, and topping everything off I had my 5.11 cap planted firmly on my noggin'--my looks screamed "turista" I guess. I waved them off, because I was still in the midst of letting it all sink in--the stark and disappointing reality of arriving at Glan in the most unfavorable weather I could imagine for what should have been a nice, warm and sunny, relaxing solo escapade. My feet started to get wet from the splashes of rain falling down on puddles as I sat down under a shed, cursing the sky, and pondered if I should just board a departing van and head back to Gen San. After all, I probably had better chances of turning sand into gold than to be able to take photos of the Large Magellanic Cloud in these pathetic sky conditions.

But then I said, oh what the heck, I'll just go and see what I could see at Gumasa, which was still a considerable distance away at 10k. Almost a desperate attempt to turn the otherwise botched R&R trip into a recce mission.

I walked over to one of the stores that sit right next to the terminal to buy a bottle of water and the girl at the counter asked me if I was going to Gumasa (at this point I was like, damn, everyone here seems to know where I am headed and I half-deliberately gave her this suspicious look). I said yes, and she said that the owner of the store she's tending is headed that way in a tricycle, so I should hire the guy. The guy, a bearded grey old man in his mid-fifties, arrived a short while later, and after a bit of negotiation, I paid him PHP 80.00 for the trip to Gumasa.

It was another uneventful ride to the beach, but one thing that did bother me was this strange guy who hitched a ride (freeloader!) in the tricycle I hired. He sat beside me and kept glancing in my direction, so I became slightly paranoid that the guy might be planning to mug me when I eventually reached the beach area. But when we arrived (I chose White Haven Beach Resort as my entry/access point), he harmlessly got out of the tri and wandered off to another part of the beach. I felt better and started my (seemingly) pointless trek up and down the beach, slowly getting drenched by the unceasing rain.

I first headed south and kept walking until I reached what appeared to be a seawall with a sign that said PRIVATE PROPERTY: KEEP OUT. I shrugged, made a 180 and headed back to White Haven. As I passed the resort I saw a caretaker sweeping the grounds and casually asked about their room rates. She eyed me from head to foot and told me that their "open-type" shed right beside would be "suitable" for me (I think she thought I was the type that would prefer those seaside huts rather than one of their airconditioned cottages, and/or maybe she thought I was going on the cheap and wouldn't be able to afford the cottage, which was probably right--the people around here must be mind readers), at PHP 500.00 (plus PHP 70.00 entrance fee, which was weird because I didn't have to pay THAT fee if I didn't stay overnight, even though I did enter via their gate! So much for "entrance fee"). I shrugged and told her I've decided not to stay, thanked her for the info and moved on.

I kept walking north until I came across a bunch of teens drinking beer and taking a dip in the placid sea (calm, despite the steady torrent of rain), and for a brief instant I felt envious and wanted to just jump into the vivid blue waters of Gumasa--which was one of the reasons I came here in the first place! But again I shrugged off the thought away and just asked the teens directions to reach the next resort. One of the guys pointed me to an area that marked the beginnings of a cliff line, where he said I could find a trail that led up back to the highway. I asked him why would I want to return to the highway and he said, "Well, it beats swimming around those cliffs (he pointed them out), especially while you're carrying all that (he pointed back at me)." I nodded back at him--point taken.

Leaving the swimmers, I walked on further and eventually found the trail that led back up to the highway. Here where the cliffs met the beach, a family was gathered, enjoying the sea and sand. And it was at this point that I started to take some shots and also recorded a short vid.

A rocky mound on the beach, probably an old pier of sorts.

These are the teens that were drinking right on the shore.

The cliffs.

This is the family that went swimming together.

To take the shots in the rain, I placed my shemagh on my head, and made a triangle umbrella with my outstretched arm and head, to shield the camera from the rain. All the photos I took are rather dark, and I didn't bother to do any postwork and brighten them up--it was a gloomy day at the beach after all, and I wanted to capture that mood.

After taking the shots, I walked over to the edge of the water, which was quite warm. I actually had been here before, back in 2003. At least now I was able to dip my toes into the waters of the Celebes Sea once again (The Celebes Islands are only a few hundred miles south of here). Then I sighed heavily at the gray sky, grabbed my pack, and slowly trudged up the trail back to the highway.

There were no vehicles on the road. The only sign of life was a lot (and I mean a lot) of yelling coming from an arguing couple (clearly two teens from the original beer-on-the-beach-gang that I encountered earlier) who kept crossing back and forth on the road as they yelled at each other, drenched and barefoot in the rain, their wet clothes hugging skin, the wet asphalt warm on the soles of their feet...ahhh, young love. I shrugged yet again, looked away, and continued my walk, heading south--I felt like Bill Bixby as David Bruce Banner trying to catch a ride, with the "Lonely Man" themesong in my head.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yUWgE0EVQ9c

Soon enough, the possibility of a ride back to town (yes, at that point, tired and soaking wet due to the rain, I decided to call my little trek off) became a reality when I heard the put-put-put of what appeared to be an open-top (yep, no roof, my luck) tricycle which was full of vegetables--the driver was headed for the marketplace downtown but he (slightly reluctantly) agreed to take me back to the terminal site. So I sat out on back, one hand behind my butt, grabbing on a rusty hold, and my other hand on some lettuce leaves poking out of the pile and spilling over to the crossbar that held the sidecar in place. At this point I was already wearing a hoodie, which was also soaking wet by this time. I definitely wasn't smiling. We barely made a mile when all of a sudden I heard a loud bang and the engine started to pour out smoke. The driver gave me a worried glance and told me there was a problem with the engine. My luck strikes again.

We still managed to reach a junction (luckily the engine conked out at a downhill section of the road), and the driver made a shrill whistling sound, which caught the attention of a motorcycle driver who just arrived at the junction too. The driver of the tricycle then sheepishly turned towards me and apologetically asked me to transfer to the other motorcycle "single" and asked the driver to take me to the terminal. I bade him goodbye, and hopped on to the motorcycle. I really felt sorry that his engine blew--I almost felt my bad luck was what caused it.

Arriving back at the terminal, I boarded the nearly-full van--it doesn't leave until it's all packed in with people, like a tuna can. And we were headed for Gen San--how fitting. After a few minutes, the van left Glan, the rain still pouring steadily like the sky had broken plumbing somewhere.

I dozed all the way back to the city.