On Thursday we hiked to a beautiful waterfall high in the mountains. Zach (Lars and Monica’s son), was our jungle guide along with Jonathan, and Sir Lance and King Louie tagged along for the adventure as well. We walked down the beach, over rocks, and across more beach until we cut into the mountain.I felt like I was on a safari at a pettin
g zoo because everywhere I looked, there were goats, dogs, and cows just sitting on the edge of the forest. We were warned to stay in the middle of the path, away from the trees, in order to avoid death due to falling coconuts. The animal adventure continued as we walked through a Mangyan (the indigenous people of the Philippines) village---lots of huge turkeys, pigs, goats, and puppies popped up as we traveled through the village and further up the mo
untain.The mountain was very, very steep and there were some inch-wide ledge paths above a rocky river that we needed to trek across. The climb up to the falls was full of mud, rock hopping, and my yelling at Dalme- our gross, flea infested, “walk –in” dog that likes white people, because a Frenchman once fed him, and has a particularly affinity for me- to get away from me!
The waterfall was awesome! The water was very cold and refreshing, and we were able to jump from the ledge into the pool. The hike back down the mountain was challenging, yet relatively uneventful, until we returned to the Mangyan village.
We saw a woman screaming and running towards us, and then a man carrying a limp woman into a hut. It was extremely chaotic, especially due to the fact that I know only a few phrases in Tagalog, and could not understand what was happening. Zach told us that they were sending for a tricycle to take her to the hospital that was just down the road. There was almost a sense among the people that they knew there could only be so much done to help the woman. I don’t know what happened to the woman once we left, but I couldn’t help thinking that if we were home and something like that happened, it would be no problem getting a person to a good hospital where they could almost certainly be helped. It was quite a weird situation for me to be in, because I wanted to help, but couldn’t.
