I STILL POSSESS A
MINDSET as if I have a day job and waited for a weekend before I engage in a
joust with the outdoors. I tried to
think it over and over and I laugh at myself for taking change so slowly. In fact, I have left that job on the last day
of 2015. I seem to be busy on weekdays
doing nothing and, yes, wired to an electrical outlet. It is indeed strange for someone who found
the great outdoors home!
I got guests for
this coming weekend and I need to prepare a campsite deep in the hidden jungles
of the Babag Mountain Range today, November 10, 2016, a Thursday. Yes, today is a weekday but I do not have the
same enthusiasm I showed for a weekend.
I need to pressure myself to move out of my comfort zone and, when I
did, the sun was already high and warm.
It is always like that.
Like now. It is already 10:20 when I arrive at the
trailhead coming from Guadalupe by motorcycle.
The good thing is that when I am in my environment everything changes so
quickly as if I am a different person. I
am instantly transported into a weekend mood.
My mind shifts from conventional to native idiosyncrasies. The smell and sounds of the forest changes
me.
I follow a path
down to Lensa Trail. The vegetation all
around me is very healthy except on a wide patch of Burmese teak forest where
every tree is healthy and the rest are not.
You could not even hear the buzz of a bee. People come here to gather firewood. Indeed, this wood is good for furniture. It is impervious to termites and is prized by
wood carvers and demand a good price. I
see a baby serpent slithering away.
The trail goes down
and, after walking just a few meters, I espy a slender arm of bamboo, much
thicker than the bagakay variety and those crawling ones called bokawe. I did not saw it before and it grew on a dry
ravine where all indigenous species thrive.
I approach it. There is running
water on the small ravine and the bamboo is of the butong variety. It is healthy and seems to have not been
touched yet by humans.
I am elated at
this discovery for I would have another source of bamboo in this mixture of
man-made forests and naturally-thriving jungle, which is really rare. I reach Creek Alpha and I follow it
downstream. It has running water and it
flows briskly where there are cascades.
Here birds make its presence felt.
A Brahminy kite (Local name: banog) called overhead thrice while
a yellow sunbird (tamsi) fleeted by infront of me.
I see fresh
footprints of three individuals, a few hours old, and it came from
downstream. One is deep for a small
person – a woman’s – and it could have carried something heavy, firewood
perhaps. I always love this moment,
trying to unravel a tale, a puzzle, by the mere study of trail signs like
footprints and what humans leave behind.
You should try this and it would be good to develop your creativity.
I left the stream
and I am onto dry ground. The first
trace of human activity here other than footprints meet me. They were harvesting leaves of young fishtail
palms. The leaves are used as
decorations of flower bouquets. They
were also cutting long leaf stalks of wild ginger called galangal and
used this as a mat to sit on when they were working on the fishtail palm
leaves.
I go down a path
to check on the state of the campground of the old Camp Damazo. I used this place the last time in
January. I did not bring people here after
that so it could recover. It had
recovered very well and so is ripe again to host a camp. This would where I would bring my guests this
Saturday. Everything is okay except that
I have to forage and stash firewood and old and green bamboo poles as well. Then I would need to find a good place for
the latrine.
I begin my work on
the firewood first. I do not need big
pieces of wood. What I would need are
just dead branches that have fell where it has still dry twigs and leaves on
it. I found many on Lensa Trail and drag
the best ones to as near as possible to the campsite and place it above
ground. It is humid here and I would
know it would rain starting this day onwards.
At Camp Damazo, I
walk a few meters downstream where there is a tree that had fallen across the
stream. There is a path on the left
leading to a cleared ground. Around it
are good places to answer the call of nature.
I marked the clearing with a shred of yellow plastic tied to a young
tree and another shred of white plastic tied to another young tree to mark the
path to there.
When I was
finished with the latrine and the firewood, I proceed to Creek Bravo where I
could see the state of health of my prized water bamboos. It is a warm day and I have to walk easy. I do not have had breakfast nor a slurp of
warm coffee. I do have bread inside my
Lifeguard USA rucksack but I reserved that for a simple lunch. I would boil water when I get to Creek Bravo.
I arrive at the
next stream and I immediately study the foliage of the bamboos. This is a rare spot of the jungle where there
are groves of bamboo. About seven of
them. Almost all of these have not
recovered well from a destructive human activity of three years ago. Only two groves are healthy and are producing
poles of normal growth and width.
I would not cut
one today and I would reserve that for Sunday – the second day of this
weekend’s camp – and searched instead for a dry pole. Usually, I stashed leftover poles above the
ground when I cut one that is too long and I found one, a leftover of the
Bonifacio Day Bushcraft Camp in November 2015.
It is not perfect but it would do during a firecraft session. I cut a small branch with roots on it so I
would introduce bamboo in Creek Alpha.
I go down the hill
with the pieces of dry bamboo and the young branch and walked upstream where
there is another smaller stream that branched into Creek Bravo. On this watery junction I will boil water for
coffee. I retrieve my Swiss Army
emergency stove and make it ready for a fire.
From nearby dry twigs and from tinder scratched from the old bamboo, a
fire begins inside the chamber of the stove.
Water I get from the smaller stream and start boiling.
After almost an
hour of tinkering with the simple gadget, I have my coffee break and my
bread. It is wonderful to just sit still
and enjoy warm coffee in a very humid jungle alone. How many people would do this on a weekend,
let alone a weekday? None that I know
of. In silence, I have peace. Water cascading on rocks is like music to the
ears. The clouds becomes dark and wisps
of moisture fall down but it did not last long.
Sky starts to clear and a raptor just crossed overhead while ground
pigeons scamper to safety.
When you are into
bushcraft, you could see everything. You
are far better than all these adrenaline junkies who think they are the fastest
sperms in the planet. Hand it to them
their exploits but when difficult terrain and bad weather begins to claim them,
they would discover late in the day that they had not used their brains
well. Bushcraft is a cerebral
activity. It is zen happening in the
woods. It uses the brains and patience
more than it uses strength.
My existence and
lifestyle justifies the need for Filipinos to look back to where they came from
and learn some bushcraft skills. Never
ever stereotype the Aetas as bushcraft for bushcraft is broader than you
think. What the Aetas are doing is
showcasing their culture and their hunter-gatherer society and urbanized people
(I do not call them civilized) had taken advantage of the Aetas for
entertainment and making money in their behalf just like whites did to Native
Americans in circuses and expos.
After my simple
meal, I go back to the old Camp Damazo to plant the bamboo and to stash the old
pieces. I notice that the path I used in
2011 in coming down here have been also used by the locals and now has an
appearance of a trail. I follow it and I
climb up a ridge where there is still an existing trail. I am now at the top of Boy T’s Hell, a hill
that had given Boy Toledo nightmares during an exploration in 2010 here. Across me is Starbucks Peak and I would love
to visit it again someday.
I go down the hill
and followed a thin ridge that linked to another ridge. I looked for the trail that led to here but
it is gone. Mind you, this is the part
where you miss a trail and it brings you far from your destination. I remembered my trips here the previous years
where me and my party travelled off-course from our intended objective. I looked again and I opt a path that I
thought would lead me back to the trailhead.
The trail I am
following begins to lead me off familiar territory and dumped me back to Creek
Alpha. I followed it upstream and I
found the trail back to the trailhead.
It is 15:00 and I have to go early to prepare my things and my
unfinished tasks for the Saturday.
No comments:
Post a Comment