Feb. 6, 2011

The mountains have called us again. This time the Sierra Madre... to the not so known paradise. Our world doesn't end on paved road. I told the boys the plan. The Caramoan Boys shall cross the Sierra Madre at the Aurora National Park, crossing rivers, ascending and descending endlessly in this zigzag unpaved road. There will be 4 of us in this Suzuki Jimny. And as Raffy protested, it shall be a 1 day affair.... hmmmm..... I told him, we will do our best then, to leave Manila City at 0300 hours Feb 06, 2011, and should be back at a max of 2359 hours on the same date Feb 06, 2011. Insanity for some, for us, we will take it as a challenge.

The itenerary:

1. Cross the Sierra Madre and feel the cold, watch the sunrise as we drive, watch the mountains, trees, birds, fog, waterfalls along the way, cross and watch rivers, feel nature to its purest one more time.

2. Have breakfast wherever we want. I told them that we have breakfast at Cabanatuan, Nueva Ecija, but i changed my mind to have breakfast at San Luis, Aurora instead. But when we reached San Luis at 0800 hours, no one was serving breakfast yet. So we bought bread, peanut butter, coffee, and had our simplest breakfast. Mardi said we buy hotdogs and grill it in Ditumabo.

3. Drive to Ditumabo Falls (you can find the coordinates in my panoramio http://www.panoramio.com/user/4313883?comment_page=1&photo_page=1, just click at the pictures and coordinates will be shown at the left side, the pics are geotagged, Garmin Dakota 10 is the GPS), cross the 1st river and leave the vehicle at the mini hydroelectric plant where the caretaker of the plant will also watch over the vehicle.

4. Walk to Ditumabo falls (the walk is not that long; approximately 30 mins), cross rivers, feel the cold, watch trees and birds again, then swim in the catch basin of Ditumabo falls. The falls itself is awesome. The water is cold and refreshing. The place is really nice and clean. It is really one of nature's awesome gifts. It is one of the places I become 1 with nature. It is like reminding me of those days that Saint John baptized some people. After swimming, it's like we don't want to leave the place. We hiked back. Mardi asked the caretaker that he will grill the hotdogs in their kitchen, and so he did, and so we feasted a bit. We packed and again, I crossed the Jimny in the river, one more time. To those who would want to cross their vehicles in that river, just be careful. There is a current in the river, know how strong the current is, know how deep, and know the size and locations of the rocks at the river floor. The rocks are slippery by the way. So just be careful and make sure you know what you are doing and the danger behind it.

5. We drove to the balete tree, claimed to be asia's largest, in Maria Aurora. Took some pictures.

6. We drove to Baler to visit the church, the Baler museum, and have lunch at Bahia de Baler in Sabang beach, where surfers do their thing. At the church, we saw a hearse coming, so i was just able to take 2 pictures. By the way, i don't like seeing a hearse or those things related to it. I had to leave the church ahead and visit the Baler museum.

7. At Bahia de Baler Grill at Sabang beach, we ordered KINGKONG MEAL, composed of 2 large plates of rice, crispy pata, pansit, fried chicken, 1.5 liters of coke, bananas. We ate while watching the waves at Sabang beach, and watched at some of Baler's surfers do their thing. The place is really relaxing, and the crew are polite. We were talking sense and non-sense, jokes that were funny and not, till someone had to use the toilet.... :) No, not me.... hehehe :)

8. We then headed to the PAGASA weather station near DIGISIT beach and took some pics.

9. We stopped at ERMITA hill. But we were kinda tired to hike the hill. So we agreed to head back home at 1630 hours.

10. Drove to Aurora National Park winding road again to watch the sunset :) It is a long day filled with good things. We are happy :)

http://www.panoramio.com/user/4313883

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