LI’L OL’ VALLEY

I WAS INVITED TO THE SOFT opening of Camp LOV. I was supposed to be there yesterday but a very important family affair constrained me to stay home-bound. I know that it is a three-day camping activity and, at least, I would be able to attend today, February 25, 2017, its second day. The very, no – make that super, nice couple, Dr. Shawn Espina and Dr. Jacqueline Jabonero-Espina, are expecting me today.

My friends from the Camp Red Bushcraft and Survival Guild were already there yesterday morning. I also know that Randy Salazar of Philippine Adventure Consultants and Jei Servano of Silangan Outdoor Equipment were also with the pack. I left the city after lunch bound for the southern municipality of Sibonga, 66 kilometers away, by public transport. The town is famous for the Shrine of the Virgin Mary in Lindogon and it attracted pilgrims and tourists from all over the world.

By 14:00, I was already in front of the Nuestra Señora del Pilar Parish, trying to get a clue of how to get a ride to Camp LOV? It is located on the mountain village of Tubod and the best transport there for a peones is by a motorcycle. I was directed by a local to their public market where motorcycles-for-hire dedicated for the mountain villages are parked. There are no public transport except by motorcycles.

I took one and I believed it took us about 40 minutes to reach my destination. The driver asked for P50 but I doubled it and gave another extra for fuel for a very entertaining ride. The driver reminds me of the character who drove Pepe the Mule in the Michael Douglas movie titled “Romancing the Stone”. He talked a lot and point to houses, people, trees and animals as his kin or belonging to his relatives. Despite his humble occupation, he was able to finish three children in college: one of whom became a policeman, another a business manager, and the youngest a nurse. Amazing!

Camp LOV is beside a road or, if I may correct myself, traversed across by a road, halving the property into two parts. On the left, if you happen to come from the public market (to your right by way of Colawin, Argao), is the main structure, farm, animal husbandry and the campsite. On the right is another farm and animal cages and the bunkhouse. All plants and animals are grown and fed organically.

Camp LOV is an experimental combination of organic farming and leisure camping. It would be opened to the public soon and we were all invited there to tour the property and to test its amenities, its food, its ambiance and its hospitality. The road I mentioned is a dirt road opened by the municipal government to give more and better access for farmers and residents to sell their produce. It circuits its way from coastal highway and market to the farms and to another highway that linked Dumanjug, from the west, with Sibonga.

Unfortunately for me, I would not be joining my friends for today and for tomorrow as they will all be going home! They were all waiting for me just to pass me that news. How sad! However, I am used to be with just by myself and would have the advantage of enjoying silence which I always crave. Before they left, we posed for a group photo on the front porch of Camp LOV wearing the Silangan-designed jerseys. The good thing is that the Espina couple, along with their children and three guests, would keep me company.

There is silence indeed as I settled myself in one of the chairs of the lanai. I am following the spectacle of leftovers from my departed friends and some of that are two gallons of unadulterated coconut wine (Local name: tuba lina), which I can never let pass away. Over conversations with Doc Shawn and his guests, I sipped the native concoction, glass after glass, until it was late afternoon. One of the guests decided to stay overnight.

Dinner came and there is enough space around the table in the dining room. Served were organic chicken adobao, upland rice, organic vegetables and farm-produced juice drinks. Illumination over the table came from kerosene-lit storm lamps. Good old country house ambiance. Wood and materials used for the construction of this small farm house were repurposed wood and second-hand accessories and iron grilles.

I may have to tour the whole property first thing in the morning. For now, it is intelligent conversation time at the lanai with Doc Shawn, Doc Jacqui and guest. Our talks wandered through plants, husbanded animals, organic technology, agriculture tourism, distribution, business opportunities and Camp LOV. The second gallon of native wine which I have all to myself, thanks to the host’s generosity, keep me abreast of the subject matters at hand.

As the lanai was getting deserted, two third-generation Silangan hammocks that will be slept in by two sons of the Espina couple claimed their spots on the posts supporting the pergola. My own second-generation Silangan hammock joined theirs. I spent the rest of the night reading a novel, “The Postman”, while sipping dry the last ounces of the “tuba lina”.

I woke up early on the second day, February 26, 2017, and I removed my hammock and stowed it back inside my Silangan Predator Z trizip bag. I had a good night’s sleep and I just burped gas out of my system which smelled fruity like coconut. Farm attendants instantly cleared the lanai table of used cubiertos, drinking glasses and plates and wiped clean the top.

A thermos and empty cups are placed on a small table on the side. I went for it when coffee, fresh milk and brown sugar appeared. Coffee in a clear country air can never be second best. Breakfast is in the air and I can feel it coming when I smelled the aroma of home-brewed chocolate. The table gets populated and the best of countryside organic meal is spread before me. It is a winner for me.

Sticky rice are paired with the chocolate drink, provincial style. Then there is the organic local sausage (chorizo) that is quite saucy and plump, upland rice, braised native pork and grilled blue-fin tuna. With all that food, how can you move and tour the five hectares of land? I do not worry. I can take anything, believe me. I am in my best fighting weight.

Twelve days ago, I just completed a 27-day Thruhike of Cebu from Liloan, Santander to Bulalaque Point, Maya, Daanbantayan. That is a route of 400 kilometers, more or less, traversing along the most mountainous region of this island province. I weighed 212 pounds in the beginning and was left with a light 186 pounds by the time I ended the journey.

Although my abdomen is a bit tight, I begin my tour inside the tiny bathroom of the farmhouse. Floor tiles, bowl, sink, faucets, the small glass window and the narrow door are recycled. It has piped water, by gravity, from an overhead tank. I rather use the standby water inside the big bucket to wash myself to conserve electricity for the water pump.

Inside the farmhouse is a master bedroom. A ladder direct you to a loft where it is used as sleeping places. There is the small living space facing the porch and the road. Adjacent is the dining table and a step away is open air kitchen and sink. There is a narrow stairway going down to another but bigger open-air kitchen, popular among local households as the “dirty kitchen”.

I go back to the lanai and walk towards the open field. This is where my friends camped two nights ago. Further down the slope is a small stream where there are coconuts, mature hambabalod, alom and binunga trees, bamboos and other native variety of vegetation. I follow it upstream and found healthy young mabolo and marang trees. I even found mangrove species of dungon and tabon-tabon recently planted.

There is a copse of mangoes and I found a good hammock camping area. There is a corral underneath the trees which could be a holding area for swamp buffaloes, cows or goats and had not been used for a long time. From here I walk along a field of native beans and an open ground planted with prickly pears. Not farther away are pittayas climbing their way to horizontal bars.

Going to the lanai, there is a little tree nursery. The Espina couple choose their plants well, concentrating more on indigenous trees and rare fruit trees, spices and flowering plants. Even as I scrutinized the plants, a mature kaffir lime tree, bearing fruits, made me shake my head in disbelief. Along the sides of the fence are spices galore, some of which I have not seen before. Then I saw another rare local lime known as biasong bearing fruits also.

As I went outside to the road, rare jade vine flowers hanged and shaded the two SUVs parking from underneath it. I crossed the road to look over the other side of the farm. There are more spices here, different climbing vegetables, different papayas, different bananas and flowering pittayas. There are roses on the slopes and lemoncitos while cows grazed underneath mango trees. Oh man, I got a case of Plant ID Overload.

I see a chicken coop and it is populated by native variety of fowls like the parawan and the jolo and these look very primeval. On another side are ducks and geese, noisy as ever as they can be. I looked at a small man-made pond with greenish content. On closer inspection, it contains tiny plants. Later, according to Doc Shawn, it contained azolla and duck weed. These are used as feeds to the farm animals and are high in protein.

I went back to the farmhouse but there is a structure that I noticed a while ago which I almost missed on my morning tour. I go down the hill and follow a path. Greeting me are turkeys. Beyond it are the centerpiece of this organic farming business: native sows. This breed is getting rarer and rarer as it is permeable to disease. I am glad that Doc Shawn is preserving its lineage by breeding it here. Each sow nurse six piglets in their separate pens.

It was almost 11:00 when I returned to the lanai. The couple were already there along with their children and guest. Their granddaughter had just completed her harvest of the beans and would be one of the dishes that would be served later. I was sweating as it was now warm but, despite that, cool breeze ensures that you do not overheat.

I changed into a dry t-shirt and hydrate cold water from a ewer. What I saw, I talked about it, to the elation of the Espina couple. Establishing Camp LOV was a project that they have planned for a long time and they decided to push it through in small driblets. First, as a hobby, just to satisfy what they learned in seminars and workshops yet it provided them fresh organic food which excess they sold to their network of friends.

Then they have to expand the size when they realized that the produce provided by the existing farm could not cope up with the growing demand for organic vegetables, fruit, meat and other green goods. It had also allowed their farm neighbors additional income gained by working in Camp LOV or by their own effort on their own plots.

Then there is agriculture tourism and the fad of healthy organic food. Camp LOV has the acreage to make it viable and sustainable, and the water sources to make it a year-round affair. Business opportunities treble when people begin to take notice of your amenities and the services that go with it. To make their ideas harmonize with the tourism blueprint of Sibonga, they had met and sat with the municipal officials on many occasions.

It is just a matter of time when the Espina couple would work on the honest inputs that the visitors have suggested. Lunch time came as expected. Pork bean soup, grilled tuna, tuna in brine, processed organic meat, upland rice and farm-fresh juice. The morning meal had not vacated most of the space inside my intestines as the new batch of warm and delicious food begins to fill in the empty spaces.

I am full and feel bloated. There is nothing to do now but wait for our departure from Camp LOV. There are no more native concoctions but there is an empty lounge chair and the unfinished novel. Drowsiness overcame me and I have to give my eyes their deserved rest. It is a long afternoon and we finally departed at five. Dr. Espina made it sure that I bring a gallon of coconut vinegar for the wife.

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