where to next?

I'm climbing Mt Apo, the highest mountain in the Philippines this September! It's been five long months since I haven't climb any mountain. That's very unusual for me. Anyway, here's our itinerary.

Day 1
8:00am ETD for Jump-off point at Sitio Baruring via Digos-Kapatagan Road
11:45am ETA Baruring
12:00nn Lunch
1:15pm Trek to Sitio Colan
1:20pm Trek to Tumpis
2:30pm ETA - Tumpis
5:00pm Dinner, Socials
8:00pm Lights Off


Day 2
4:45am Wake Up Call
5:00am Prepare Breakfast/Packed Lunch and Fetch Water
6:30am Trek to Tinikaran Camp 2
11:00am ETA Tinikaran Camp 2
Lunch
11:45am Ascent Summit via Boulders (Botoy's Ridge or 87 Degrees)
4:00pm Dinner, Socials
8:00pm Lights Off

Day 3
5:00am Panoramic View of the Summit
6:00am Breakfast and prepare packed lunch
7:00am ETD
9:00am ETA at Lake Venado
12:00nn ETA at Century-Old Almasiga Tree. Lunch
2:00pm ETA at Garuk
3:00pm ETA at Colan Campsite
5:00pm Kapatagan

ten places i want to go

Here's my list of the top 10 places I want to go to before I kick the bucket.

1. Greece
Since I was a child, I have always been fascinated with Greek history and mythology. I remember Edith Hamilton's Greek Mythology as one of my favorite books. I would love to one day to go there and see in persons all the structures that amazed me when I was a kid.

2. Italy
I'll make a wish at the Trevi Fountain, eat gelato while walking in the streets, taste the Tuscan wine, ride the gondola in Venice!

3. China
I would love someday to take a walk at the wonder that is the Great Wall and to enter the Forbidden City

4. Maldives
What else but the beach! I could picture myself lying in the sun and basking in the sun's glory.


to be continued...

the sweetest thing

“Could a greater miracle take place than for us to look through each others eyes for an instant?” ~Henry David Thoreau

Took this photo while we were riding on a banca that will take us to Nogas Island.

i am tired beloved

sunset at Nogas Island, Philippines

Tonight I Can Write the Saddest Lines
Pablo Neruda

Tonight I can write the saddest lines.

Write, for example,'The night is shattered
and the blue stars shiver in the distance.'

The night wind revolves in the sky and sings.

Tonight I can write the saddest lines.
I loved her, and sometimes she loved me too.

Through nights like this one I held her in my arms
I kissed her again and again under the endless sky.

She loved me sometimes, and I loved her too.
How could one not have loved her great still eyes.

Tonight I can write the saddest lines.
To think that I do not have her. To feel that I have lost her.

To hear the immense night, still more immense without her.
And the verse falls to the soul like dew to the pasture.

What does it matter that my love could not keep her.
The night is shattered and she is not with me.

This is all. In the distance someone is singing. In the distance.
My soul is not satisfied that it has lost her.

My sight searches for her as though to go to her.
My heart looks for her, and she is not with me.

The same night whitening the same trees.
We, of that time, are no longer the same.

I no longer love her, that's certain, but how I loved her.
My voice tried to find the wind to touch her hearing.

Another's. She will be another's. Like my kisses before.
Her void. Her bright body. Her infinite eyes.

I no longer love her, that's certain, but maybe I love her.
Love is so short, forgetting is so long.

Because through nights like this one I held her in my arms
my soul is not satisfied that it has lost her.

Though this be the last pain that she makes me suffer
and these the last verses that I write for her.

you and I are travelers

"We are all travelers in the wilderness of this world, and the best we can find in our travels is an honest friend." - Robert Louis Stevenson

Nogas Island, Antique Philippines

A little something from the footloose wanderer

Welcome to my blog. I will post here pictures and tales of my recent trips. Hope you will enjoy what you're about to see and read. I hope I can also inspire you to pack your bags, travel, and enjoy the beauty of this world. Remember this: we are all wanderers. ^_^