Trekking in the Sierra Madre and Palanan
Palanan, Sierra Madre, Isabella, Philippines
April 26th, May 1st, 2015
5 days in the Jungle with the Dumagats
How it all started
About three years ago, when we just come back from a memorable motorbike ride in the cordillera of the Philippines, Wlad told me that our next adventure should be to cross the jungle of the Sierra Madre to join Palanan…
Why Palanan?
Because despite being located on the west coast of the main island of the Philippines, Luzon, this small community of a ten thousands is actually one of the most inaccessible in the archipelago, since no roads lead there and because Palanan is located on the Pacific Ocean, just where most typhoon land.
So reaching Palanan, it’s just like going to the world's end. Exciting.
Actually, Palanan has been established in the 16th century and managed to become quite a prosperous community. For more info, look at the section Dumagats.
Anyway, to reach Palanan, you have no choice than walking through the jungle of the Sierra Madre, one of the last untouched forest of Luzon and the Philippines.
So, when Seb told Wlad he wants to trek there, Wlad said “I’m in!”; and when Wlad told me they are going, I said “I’m in” and so we went into the unknown: 5 days of trek through the tropical jungle for 30-40 years old guys much more used to the urban jungle of Manila.
Preparation
Preparation went fast and was busy: buying hammocks, cooking material, new shoes, waterproof bags and so on was quite simple but we went a little crazy when it wents to medical… We ended up with survivor kits, surgery kits, venom aspiration kit, tons of drugs etc… and most important Seb managed to get us a good 10kg of food just in case.
Wlad, who visited Palanan last year(accessible by plane through Tuguegarao and Kawaian) managed to organise guides and everything so we took the plane to Tuguegarao on April 25 then from there to Palanan on the 26th. Look at the How to get there section for more info.
After the quick necessary registrations, we were welcomed in the Mayor’s guesthouse, enjoyed a wonderful lobster in coconut shell lunch, relaxed on the beach and that’s about it.
Bad news though, experimented as we were, we had only one small tent for 2 along with the 3 hammocks, so when it poured at about sunset time it became quite clear we may have a trouble for the nights to come. Well it rained two more times during that night, and I could barely sleep anxious and especially angry after myself to have been so dulled in the preparation.
Day 1: The river
As our guides came to fetch us up the day after, we decided to buy two large tarpaulin (one for them and one for us), they look quite confident into it so we could just believe in them… later we will see that you can always be confident in people who know so well their environment.
After the usual quite quick registration and other administrative tasks, we ride on two tricycles for a good hour to Barrio Bisag, the starting point of our trail.
A few hundred meters across rice fields and we went into a river. Despite loading our crew as much as possible with the heavier stuff, yet our 10 kg bags were quite a burden when it came to walk on slippery, always slippery, when not even rolling stones. While Wlad was running ahead, Seb and I looked at each other thinking exactly the same thing: if we are to go this way for five long days, well it might just be the hell of the longest week.
Equipped with their incredible foot, literally just as long as wide, our team, Aime, Tony, Rafi and Edmon were just jumping from stone to stone, crossing the river with ease while each of our step was an opportunity to fall (that’s just fun), torn your ankle or whatever. We crossed the river about a hundred times in what look like 5 hours, but lasted actually just two before we stopped for a longer pause. What a relief when Wlad, our official Liaison Officer announced after a short talk with Aime, the leader of the crew, that we will sleep on that small beach.
We had just walked a little but it was enough, way enough for Seb and I and just good for the team since we were already at the foot of Mt Bisag, the big piece of cake for Day 2.
Not the time for Wlad to brief us that the camp of the Dumagat was set: loads of dry wood (how in the world they find dry wood when it has poured the night before and everything was just so wet), two sticks and they had set their tent and the fire was already burning.
The two youngsters Edmon and Rafi went fishing while Toni cooked water. Hot water for coffee then the rice. It’s always the same moves, the first coffee, always, then rice.
I have to stop here to discuss quickly how the Dumagats go in the forest. As discussed above, they would never have brought a trapolin if we had not purchased it. So they brought coffee, sugar and a load of rice (15kgs for five days). That’s it for the food. We added Magic Sarap, and a few veggies but it’s very unclear if they would have purchased if it were for us. When it comes to clothing, well they would change their Tshirt once and I’ve not seen them wearing any warm clothe. They carried sleepers too that they would use once in town. That’s all. Travel light it is.
Back to the set up of the camp. The guys came back with two set of three sticks hold together with a liana. One stick in the middle, holding the tarpaulin over it and we would be set. Problem, the soil was quite rocky and did not look at all like we could sleep on it. Anyway it was lunch time so we stopped to eat.
The first fishing session of Edmon was not so miraculous, only two very small gold fishes so we started doubting what the guys may eat during the trek. We had our rations so not really a main concern for us, but them?
Back to the camp. If Seb had his tent, Wlad and I were keener on sleeping on the hammocks than on the rocks so we needed to hang them up.
The few trees on the edge of the beach were definitely not as perfectly set as we would imagine, romantic trekker we were dreaming that we would sleep in the jungle where it’s so easy to find trees… The Dumagat knew that the forest itself is way too much infested by ants, spiders, all over kinds of insects, and liches – we will discover soon enough - to sleep into it, while you can stay on the beaches of the river where the later don’t adventure so much. Well, we had trees in our back, so we thought (together with them) at handing the hammock on one side to the trees and on the other side to the tripod they used to hang the tarpaulin.
It very quickly appeared Ayme and the team would be hundred times more efficient than us in doing so, thus we let them the lead. Hanging the hammock to the tree was trivial, then to the tripod, okay very okay. But, we were quite heavy guys so how to manage than the tripod would handle the load? The guys moved the tripod, the main post in the river, moved stones to block it. It was a perfect fit in terms of lengths, yet not solid enough when Wlad tried it so we had to find another solution. Fortunately enough, we had brought 30 meters of climbing rope. A minute of Mac Gyver thinking and the bulb lit up: hanging the hammock from one side of the river to the other it was. Worth a try. Ayme understood it in a glimpse, Rafi went across the river in another one and we had the rope across the river hanged solidly to a tree. While the Frenchies were wondering how to tense the hammock on such a distance (maybe 7 to 8 meters), the Dumagats thought sharper: they used the rope to hold the top the tripod, so that this one was actually pulled on one side by the rope across the river and on the other side by the hammock…
The first step was promising, and after a few adjustments on the length of the rope, adding tension on the hammock, adding a few stones, it worked!!!! Wlad was laying on the hammock and it looked ok!!!
Amazing engineering by a team, who would prove itself extraordinary all along the trip. Adding a second hammock was just as easy as saying hello and moving the tarpaulin to protect us from the rain proved to be not so much of a problem. Final touches and we were, Wlad and I, laying on our hammocks, a safe 10 cm above the ground, just enough not to get hurt too badly if ever we came to fall.
The night was soon to fall and we started to cook our own dinner. We offered to the guys a ration of chili con carne to go along their rice, ate one each, and started to play Tarot. Wlad who always win will eventually lose very badly, we shared a few mouthful of Glenfidish.
While we were discussing of the frugality of their diet, thinking our crew was sleeping, we saw a few lights coming back. Not long after we were request to share a feast: three rather big fishes and 2 river shrimps. Fishing at night with the harpoon was much more of a success and we now knew for sure that we were in the best of the hands for this quite unusual trip.
It was soon to be time to sleep, not the most comfortable of all, cause I kept getting awake by the sound of the river I mistaken for a heavy rain, when the last of the incidents of the night happened. Wlad move swiftly in his hammock so to sleep on the face, we heard a big sound and now my bumps were just touching a few rocks…
Fortunately we will not get any lower and we slept quite ok even though not like on a five-star mattress.
Then, we saw Ayme and Toni busy: Ahas!!!! Ahas!!! Wlad and I discovered a majestic, green cobra, about 1.5 m long on the stone just three meters from them. Wlad ventured forward to film with the GoPro while Toni remained at good distance armed of his bolo. The snake was actually already wounded, Toni got him earlier… and as his usual he laughed. We had not to ask them to know that this guy was a deadly one and well we had no choice than to keep walking despite the dramatic reminder of the dangers we were facing at any single step.
Going down is fun at the beginning, especially cause the path was not so steep but once it becomes steep, it’s just as tiring as going up. Every step you take, you need to fully be aware of where you’ll put your foot, what angle to use to grab some grip, etc… Concentration must be at its max, if not well you may fall. Wlad had a whole different technique; he focused on what he could hold in case he fell. It led to a dozens of Wlad slipping down on his buts, Wlad sliding, holding a creeper, rotating on himself to fell in leaves or bushes… always with a smile.
The crew could not but to laugh and laugh again.
We went down for a few hours like that, tired, very tired and harassed by our would-be worse enemies: leeches. Tiny, standing on the leaves on one of their two mouths, waiting to spring on you, they were literally everywhere. On your legs, on the socks, inside the shoes, those tiny bastards were overwhelming. When resting later on the beach, we will count around 20 bites per legs each… Irritating.
Then came the light
We listened to the river, made a last steep down and discovered a heaven in the jungle: the perfect pool of turquoise water, a large beach of river sand, Ayme crossed first and we would shout!!! What a reward for a toughest day.
Such a big river would be a heaven for the guys to fish, we had a feast, then jumped to sleep, no more power for Tarot tonight.
Day 3: Break
We started as our usual, early yet slow to come in motion. Our program was simple, going up in a creek, reaching an edge, going down on the edge, then a creek, then up again and so on…
The bright surprise was that after just three to four hours of walking, Ayme looked at us and said we will camp there. Change of plan? Likely, the river was large, beautiful, with a nice beach where to set the camp, much better than anything we could reach later.
So we enjoyed our afternoon, relaxing which means trying to recover, playing tarot, cleaning up our skin, socks, clothes and shoes from the now usual leeches and that was it.
We had more time to enjoy our Glenfidish and that was just needed.
Day 2 : Mount Bisag
Coffee, rice, preparing the bags, dismantling the hammocks, packing the tent, brushing the teeth, it took us about 2 hours to pack up. We were ready to go well before 8 thanks to an early wake up. Riding up the river proved to be difficult again but did not last long at all. We stopped on another beach on the right side of the river, then went up. Litterally went up. Just like the steepest of the hike for a good thirty minutes. Luckily it was humid but relatively not so slippery so we could manage to have safe foot and did not endure much falls on the way up. But god it was steep. Way too steep. After 5 minutes, my tshirt was fully wet of sweat (at 8 in the morning) and Seb and Wlad were not doing any better. Yet we progressed quite fast, the pace of our guides was strong. Both my uncles from the French Alps told me the basics of the trekker, do not stop often, do not stop long cause it’s very difficult to start again. No choice though, we had to stop. Stop to drink loads of water, stop to eat our precious chocolate bars, and gums, and other fancy trekking stuff that kept us alive that day. Seb who had skipped breakfast suffered a lot that day, Wlad was almost running out of water after one hour of going up (he had two and a half liters). We managed to get to a first rise and it looked like the way would be a bit easier now. We should have reached the edge of the mountain now. Ayme said it’s not going to be that steep anymore but we would learn to know not to trust Ayme, a fine psychologist when it comes to reassure his team of exhausted clients.
Another hour was needed to reach the top. 600 meters, two hours in the jungle. Exhilarating, literally. We took a few pictures across the branches, managed to get a bit of signal, stopped for a quick while, ate a few more chocolate bars and it was time to get down.
Walking through rambles at the top of Mt Bisag, we found a few drops of water that will later turn into a creek. We felt better that we would not starve on water and started our downhill in the bed of the creek.
Day 4: Back to the hardship
Up to the river again, then the creek, going up, steep, very steep. We reached the edge soon enough, then up again, steep, very steep, mahirap, mas mahirap, then finally the top to now get down, reach a river, not really suitable for a great camp, then up again, steeper, longer, way longer. We would reach the top of our trail today, 1080 m on the iphone of Seb. A cumulated 800 m of positive height in rough conditions. Then we would reach the last pass, fall into the valley dominating San Mariano, leaving Palanan. But before going to that I’d like to tell you a little adventure that happened to me.
Among the team, I was the mabilis (fast) in the climbs, so I was always following closely Toni who was the real guide of the crew. Toni would always lead, knowing the trail better than the others. We were engaged in the usual, steep parts up, those were you need to use your hands to hold some ropes or trees to move up, when Toni, who was just ahead, of me laughed and said something like Asomething. I looked at him and since he was waving his hand and I’ve just heard a weird noise, I thought… Well, maybe Ahas?? So I articulated something like Ahas and Snake. Toni shook his hands and laughed again. I asked maliit (small), he answers malipit (close)… I needed Wlad who was just arriving to confirm. Yes, it was a snake and yes he passed very close to me, literally between my legs and I was very lucky because it was the same kind of green snake than the day before… Toni could not stop laughing.
I started sweating, could have been discouraged or afraid but well, no choice than moving forward, no choice than looking where you step so I had no times to think too much of the fright and kept going.
Back to our walk, we were now super tired cause it was already 1pm and we had still not eaten, especially the crew who were not crunching on chocolate bars at the pace we were. We reached a first clearing in the forest then another. We could now see the sky and we found they were some big majestic trees. All these days we were questioning ourselves: “Where are the big trees, we hardly see any? Could it happen that they have been logged? How in the hell could somebody access this part to cut these trees?”. Now, we had the answer: the trees were there, we were just not able to see them since our field of sight was so short!
Many things had changed: it was bright! it was hot! Contained in our forest, we had not realized how much she was actually protecting us for the killer of the Philippines’ summer, the burning sun.
No times for philosophy though, we were in the middle of our race down, rushing through the brambles, getting wounded on the calves, the legs, the arms, the hands, even the neck and the face, we would look like commandos once we would finally get out of there. So true, than the people of San Mariano, astonished we might have walked all the way from Palanan, would think we were US Marines!!!!
Since we were about to have lunch, Wlad asked if it would be possible to have some veggies “gulay”, the guys said yes as if it were obvious, while we had not had veggies for a few days now. True enough, if there were no fish in the small creek where we stopped by, we were in the middle of a field of camote leaves. The freshly harvested leaves, just quickly boiled would remain the best spinach in a lifetime Once again the Dumagat had surprised us, whatever you asked, these guys could provide, just like that.
Yet, we were not done yet, it was already 3 pm and when we asked Ayme, we had 3 to 4 more hours to go, we would arrive by night, completely exhausted at the camp. No cool.
We raced again, faster than ever, barely speeding down while crossing the bushes. Once we stopped briefly, we asked Ayme if it was still far, the whole crowd would burst out laughing. Only 20 minutes more he said, he had “bola bola” us to make sure we would walk fast and arrive on time to the camp. Well, we kept the same pace thinking we were done, it lasted another good hour before we reached a river and the camp. The river was not as beautiful as the ones before. Actually the whole forest was not as majestic. Logged until the 90s, it was rather a land with devastation we walked, clearings, burnt sites. Fortunately enough, they had stopped the logging in 1991 and the Palanan side was safe but what will happen to this forest?
Our guides could be the best wardens for this forest, they know her, they respect her who provide them with everything they possibly need, they would always cut the minimum branches just to keep the trail open, but well, it’s difficult to foresee how this savaged part could grow beautiful again.
Time to set up our last camp, play a last party of tarot, enjoy our last dinner with the guys, laugh and pack up energy for our last day. We were aiming to leave early so to make it to Manila by night and have a rich dinner… plans, dream
Day 5: the longest walk
We woke up early, we packed fast, we were ready to race and make it early. We walked fast and steady for hours, barely pausing. We would now meet our second group of people after the improbable encounter of fake-locals (they were wearing slippers and brought a chicken to eat) the day before. We now crossed more and more large open fields, with cut trees. Then a first village, men wearing guns, dogs barking and the sun burning. It was hot, it was fast, it was tough, it was long. The trail was not smooth like in the forest but hard as a rock. The Dumagats would wear their sleepers to protect their feet from the heat. Our joints – knees, feet, ankles, back of Seb – will start to suffer but we would keep walking, faster than ever to reach the first barrio. It was already four hours we were walking when we passed the first camp, one hour later we saw corn fields and trucks. Trucks!!!! Could they possibly drive us to town? No, not now…
It’s only a matter of time before we found one. Yet, no!
We looked at Google Maps, we were 20 to 30 km away from San Mariano, and if we could see roads, nothing looking like a village, and no signal.
Walking and walking. We reached now a viewpoint: palm trees, rivers, fields, civilization!
Walking again, 20 minutes, and we arrived to the first sitio. A large and generous tree offering his shade, a bench and a nice guy to ask to where to find a tricycle or a Jeepney. Relief. Tricycle and Jeepneys are going everywhere in the Philippines, they were motorbikes in the Barrio. We would find a way to get a ride.
Unfortunately enough, the Jeepney was not here and would not come, there were no tricycle. We stopped at the SariSari store, first RC Cola, peanuts, cigarettes (we were running of since the night before). Discussion with the boys: how to get there? No results.
Fortunately, there is very little things money cannot buy.
Attracted by these white boys, ready to spend their bucks to move quickly, all the boys in town were ready to make the deal of the year: 400 pesos for a 30 minutes motorbike ride, when they would make less money working in the fields.
We found seven of them, they would dropped us at a ferry down in the valley. Crossing the river, finding a tricycle. Stopping at another, larger river, getting a ferry, and five minutes later we were in town.
We looked for a carenderia near the market, ate all we can and it was time to say bye bye. We were not really willing to leave them. Last pictures, distributing a few gifts, watching the large smiles on their faces when they got Tshirts, barely used hammocks, old sleeping bags and backpacks. It was good times even though we could notice each of them made sure to pack his own stuff, losing, maybe, what Wlad called their innocence.
Last group pic. Looking for a Jeep, hiring a Jeepney direct to San Mariano, looking at the travel time to Manila: 10 hours of bus. Just impossible, we would spend the night here and fly the day after.
We were done and it was great. Memories would last. Best holidays are the ones where you are really set in a whole different environment. We would come back, we said and maybe a few of you reading these lines will enjoy similar moments in Palanan or any other blessed area in the islands.