My Camping Stories: Dehydrated Cold and Leech Infested Camping Trip [Part 1 of 2]

We were invited by one of dear friend who was in Banga, South Cotabato for some get together because he might live there forever... lol... He was the one who payed for our fare to get there.

We arrived at General Santos City on a beautiful sunny morning.

Just recently, there was a Bus bombing by our friendly neighborhood rebels so we took a Van for Hire instead to get to their place. It took us almost 3 hours to get there not to mention the endless military checkpoints "keeping the civilians safe" wink.

Me and my friend helping out drying rice

Fooling Around

Anyway, back to the our mini adventure! We eyed on a beautiful mountain called Mount Matutum in Tupi, South Cotabato. An almost perfect shape Mountan/Volcano. Just on the foot of the mountain was a vast pineapple plantation by DOLE.

Actually, nobody ever wants us (Me and my Friend) to climb the mountain because it is not safe. But we went on anyway.

The night before, we had this drinking session while I was making a homemade denatured alcohol fueled "beercan" stove because there were no available butane on the shops. With 1 bottle of Vodka and a case of Red Horse Beer, I (we) got a very bad hangover the day after (climb day).

Climb Day!

The Place was Sitio Glandang. We were greeted by our guide who is also a motorbike for hire driver, local police officer and our cook. We were then given seedlings each to plant (visitors are required to plant seedlings).

The Map

Tree Planting

After around 40 minutes of trekking, my hangover got even worse and got severely dehydrated. Luckily we were near a water source (spring) so I consumed lots of water. I was very weak at that point. What made it even worse, is there are bloodsucking leeches clinging on to our body every time we stop for a rest. We found a way to get rid of these bloodsuckers by pouring denatured alcohol at them.

The watering hole

Trail Signs

Leech Pic

Another Bloody Leech Pic

Dehydrated

3 hours later, I was back! No more dehydration but we are greeted by even more harder obstacles. Large roots, and slippery mossy rocks! Our clothes were also very wet from the occasional rains and we are losing daylight (5:00pm). Fog crept in, now our trail was not that visible and what made it worse is my friend got cramps! Now, our guide was talking about entities trying to lead us somewhere because he is not familiar with the trail.

[END of Part 1]

^{CAMERA: Kodak C433 | Location: Mt. Matutum, TUPI, South Cotabato, Philippines | ca 2009}

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