THE MODE OF RELAXATION

August 25-29, 2010

The main goal for this five-day trip is to appreciate the nature views of Mount Talinis. We had no solid plan or detailed itinerary of tourist spots in the whole Negros Oriental to visit nor we tried to do extensive research.

Upon touchdown, we decided to stroll around the city proper, starting from the sea side Rizal Boulevard then we saw Sans Rival cafe which is about to open. We had an early breakfast of pasta, Sans Rival, and other native products. By the way, the coffee was great and my favorite kutsinta.


 Then we headed to Robinsons mall to buy the needed supplies for the hike. The idea is to pack light since this is our first to visit this mountain. Then it was about lunch so we asked where is the best place to eat, the suggestion was to go to Maluay in the town of Zamboanguita. This place is actually the major jump-off for scuba divers and visitors going to Apo Island. It was right timing that iit was Wednesday, it is actually their market day. We saw everyone selling different goods, trading cows, goat and chickens and a lot more.

We went to the shore to take pictures, overseeing the island. There are huts where people eat, our order was half kilo of yummy lechon, tinolang isda and grilled fish. Before heading to our friend's uncle house, we visited his other relatives in the area. At night time, we talked to our guides of what is our time-line for tomorrow's hike. The story that night is they really thought we are treasure hunters. There is an urban legend that Japanese soldiers buried some golds in the nearby mountains.

An early wake up call since our start trek time is 5:00AM. For our mountain expedition, we will take the Bedia-Apolong traverse with options to hike the peaks depending on our capacity. Loaded with our packs, we were greeted with an uphill assault until we reached the view deck where you can see the ocean, hovering also the islands of Apo, Siquijor and Cebu. In our two-days adventure, we familiarized and made a unified bonding with the nature discerning the thought to come back again. The attachment made us believe
that the beauty of this mountain is a worthy one and try another route the next time.

Saturday was food-trip day as we visited his relatives in the town fiesta of Bacong. The night was filled with drinks and so much food. There we heard again the stories of treasure hunting, finding hidden gold bars and so much more.

Though we had not visited any more landmarks in this part of Negros, our mentality descended into the notion of relaxation. We, four of us had traveled from South (Apo Expedition – 9 days), North (Silence of Batanes – 7 days) and now in the Visayas Region(Negros Exploration – 5 days). Summing up, a total of twenty-one days of enjoyment, exploration and the most important is the acceptance in the confidence with each other.

As we traveled to different places, we have known each other very well, not yet to the extent of drilling into each deeper side but recognize the value of good and bad attitudes relating to each uniqueness. As we see Mr. President aka Facial Wash Boy smiles, a smile we had not seen in the long time. As we saw our couple friend, namely Ms. Korea and Boy Kweba aka The Real Treasure Hunter evolves into deeper link with each other. As for the writer, another write-up will be created. :-p

To the Apo Team, thank you for the great time and see you in our next adventure!.. ;-)