Life’s Sneak Preview

Finally, after being postponed twice, our Mapawa nature trek had been pushed through last August 13, 2005. There were supposed to be sixteen of us who would go nature trekking, but due to some unavoidable circumstances, the final headcount was trimmed down to five! Hahaha! So there we go (Judith, Teresa, Linette, Rizza, & yours truly).. heading on our way for the next adventure.

After a 30-minute drive from the heart of the city, traversing the long and winding terrain of Sitio Mapawa, we finally arrived at the site of the Nature Park. Whew! Such a cool place! Tall trees, fresh air, lush vegetation, unspoiled river, chirping of the birds, the horses.. hmmn.. reminds me of my home province Bukidnon! We took a short rest at the park’s reception area. On the ad board were pictures of the river trek — the 35 ft. water falls slide, the 100 meters zip, the 30 ft. jump and the 65 ft. water falls rappel. Wow! Such a challenging trek! We couldn’t wait for long! We wanted to get started with the adventure! But… ooops! Our excitement died down when the staff told us that we couldn’t proceed with the river trek ‘coz we haven’t made an advanced booking with them. Uh-oh! We were hoping that we could still join with the 27 river trekkers (from Nestle) who arrived ahead of us and waited for a feedback from the other staff who contacted the trek guides, but our waiting was in vain.  It was too late for us to catch up with the Nestle group then. We just opted for some other entertaining activities to compensate our disappointment. Aha! Horseback riding would be such a lot of fun!

Horseback riding ain’t that easy. It takes an amount of guts to befriend a strange horse and therein lies some risks. “What if my horse will go wild? What if it will toss me over? What if it will suddenly gallop?” These were the thoughts that invaded my mind while I was watching Janelo, my guide/horseback instructor, pulling out one horse from the stable. But when I was on the rough road riding on with Dianne (the name of my horse), my apprehensions just melted out as I enjoyed the fresh air drifting through the valley of trees.  Silence was  nowhere ‘coz I kept on talking to Dianne as if she was a human and understood every word that I said hehe!  I became so fond of her too, I even chanted a song while we were on the trail (good thing my horse didn’t fall back to sleep hahaha!). Just about 30 minutes, and we reached the peak of the mountain. Whew! I couldn’t help but exclaimed a loud “wow” when I was there at the summit riding on Dianne, overlooking the vast green fields and the tall trees from beneath.  How nice to be in the cloud 9 — I felt like I was on top of the world! (reminds me of our Mt. Kitanglad adventure a couple of years ago).  A few more minutes of relaxing at the summit, and it was time to go back to the park.  Another 30 minutes stroll ‘n ride with Dianne back to her stable, hehe! I really had much fun bonding with my horse then.  ‘Till next ride!

It was already past 11:00 a.m. when we were through with the horseback riding… just in time for lunch! The group then headed down to the river, found a big table at the river bank, and there settled for a sumptuous lunch. The usual 30-minute lunch break turned to be a 2-hour tsikahan session hehe!  Reminiscing time, ‘ika nga! From the childhood memories, to high school life, to college days, then to career life.. hangtud niabot ang topic sa pagtaas sa presyo sa gasolina, haha!  Lingaw jud! It was truly a memorable girl bonding experience!

A few minutes after we have taken a short nap in the kiosk, we were contemplating on a crazy idea of river trekking by ourselves (as in, without the trek guides, hehe!). But after giving much thought, we decided to just wait for our ‘sundo’, get back home.. and sleep, hahaha! But.. ooops! Alas singko pa mobalik ang sakyanan! We couldn’t just stay in there and be idle for 3 hours just for waiting. Teresa had to call her dad to pick us up without ado ‘coz the weather was starting to be “unfriendly”, the rain might pour any minute then. But… oops again! There was not a single trace of Globe signal at Mapawa! Teresa, Rizza and me are all Globe users. Good thing Judith uses Smart sim. But.. uh-oh! Another ooops! Check operator services! Huhuhu! Fortunately, Linette’s Smart sim still has a few load left. Judith has to use the remaining peso of Linette’s load for texting the load retailer somewhere in CDO (kay wala baya load retailer sa Mapawa hahaha!). One thing more, Smart’s signal is quite unstable in that area. You still have to look for an elevated area (somewhere up in the hill) to capture a signal. So there I go with Judith, saka sa pinakataas nga portion sa bungtod.. and voila! Full bars ang signal didto hehe! Finally, Judith has her Smart sim loaded, ready for call transactions. And to make the story short, Teresa was able to call her dad, and in just about half an hour, we were already leaving the nature park. Whew! What an adventure! Hehehe!

We hope to go back nature trekking at Mapawa in a few months to come. By then, we will make sure we don’t forget these two important things:
1) Make an arrangement for an advanced booking (para dili mapalaw sa River Trek, hehe!) 2) Bring an extra Smart sim for emergency cases.

One thing we’ve realized during the nature trek was that our FAILURE to go river trekking was really “MEANT TO BE”.  There was nobody to be blamed for such failure. It was simply meant to be. Despite our insistence to join with the river trekkers (to the point of talking to the owner of the park itself just for us to get the accommodation we want), things just didn’t turn out the way we wanted to. We realized that had we really insisted, and our demands were granted, who would know we could have been in the verge of accident or something? We prayed for a successful nature adventure, and God did answer it with a “yes”. It may not be the “yes” we wanted (like the water falls slide & rappel we’ve always been dying to explore), but it was the “yes” He knows best for us (like giving us the chance to enjoy nature at its best, and sending us back to our homes safe and sound). HIS answers are truly wiser than our prayers. To God be the glory!