Not just one, not even two, it’s many! Hooray, Mt. Marami!

     It’s been a while since the last time I have posted in my blog! In that span of time, I was able to pay a visit to beaches and summits! Now that it’s summer and most of you, guys, are making an effort to file a leave and make your weekends meaningful, let me share this summit adventure that we had 3 weeks ago to give you an idea about where to go next.

     This year, I have tried something new. HIKING. I am from Cavite (Tagaytay to be particular) and there are too many mountains around (for real!). Everytime I go to a place or another, I see these picturesque views from afar. And one day it just hit me, what does it feel like to be on top of those? That’s when I decided to go hiking.

     My squad and I were thinking of hitting Mt. Batulao first. We are all new to hiking. However, as we were browsing pictures in the internet, the photo of Mt. Marami – Silyang Bato really got them. So we chose it over Mt. Batulao. It was April 12 when we went there. It was a weekday so there were not much of hikers in there. Mt. Marami is located at Magallanes, Cavite. There are two ways to get there. One is taking route passing by the Emilio Aguinaldo highway and the other is through taking the Cavitex (if you will be coming from Manila).

HOW TO GET THERE:

(1) If you are coming from Manila, ride a bus going to any of these destinations: Calatagan, Lian, Nasugbu Batangas (pick buses such as Erjohn Almark, DLTB Co., BSC there’s a terminal at Buendia near Gil Puyat LRT Station.) From there, tell the conductor to drop you off at Brgy. Amuyong. Brgy. Amuyong is at the right (if you are coming from Manila taking the route to Emilio Aguinaldo highway). It will take you 3-4 hours depending on the traffic. Once you get there, cross the road and ride the jeepney going to Magallanes. Jeepneys in there leaves every hour. Tell the jeepney driver to drop you off at Brgy. Ramirez. From Brgy. Amuyong to Magallanes, you’ll have to pay 35php.  It’s a 35-minute drive. That’s the drop off point of Mt. Marami. From there, you have to take tricycle going to the Barangay hall for registration. The ride costs 19php each. It’s just a five-minute ride. You will also be asked to pay 20php as environmental fee. As regards with the travel guide, there are residents around the barangay hall whom you can choose from. The minimum pay for them is 500. If there are more than 5 hikers/travellers, it will cost a hundred bucks per head. 

     Take this one seriously, you really have to bring at least 3-5L of water for it is an extremely long walk before you finally reach the foot of the mountain. In our case, since my company is composed of beginners, it took us three hours (YES, THREE HOURS) to finally get to the foot of the mountain. There is only an assault (or two, I think) so it’s just a minor climb. Another note, if you are not to spend a night at the mountain, make sure you have descended and returned to the drop off point in Brgy. Ramirez before 4pm because the it’s the time of the public ride’s last trip (unless you are willing to pay 1000 pesos for a jeepney to bring you back to Brgy. Amuyong). We were not really able to take much pictures as we walk because imagine how haggard we were. It was only a day hike and it was an extremely hot summer day. Soooo, here are our pictures!

Here’s my first “buwis buhay” photo at the peak! It seems so low but really, my knees were shaking that I can’t even stand up. lol

With them squad. we call ourselves ang pitong manlalakbay LOL.

Another squad shot! We were dead tired but it doesn’t show in our pictures because it was overpowered by our feels upon seeing the view from the top. It’s indeed breath taking!

Look at that view! Lol, Kent, I’m talking about your background 😀

Look at those rockies! Halfway there!

At the other side of the rockies! I took this photo from the other side of the summit 🙂

Hello from the other side lol still at the summit but on the other side again.

Sitting on the famous Silyang Bato!

My signature pose on top of the other side of the peak!

Again, taken from the other side of the rockies 🙂 Going up here requires a bit of your mountain climbing skills. There were no ropes so you’d better be careful.

      We really made our stay on the peak worthwhile by taking too many pictures. Haha!

There were lots of woodcutters and farmers that we came across during our hike. Some of them sells fresh buko juice for only 20 pesos.

We started our hike at 9:30 am and we reached the peak at exactly 12:30pm. We had too many breaks from the trek because one of us has asthma so she had to rest every now and then. We descended at around 1:30pm and it took us 4 hours going back to Brgy. Hall. It was an epic experience! Since we were not able to catch the last trip, I called my relatives to pick us up. However, they wouldn’t want to take the risk (according to them) of being held up by NPAs. Believe me, if there were any, I wouldn’t be sitting here right now typing this blog if I was abducted by those guys three weeks ago. I even became a laughing stock for a while of the residents when I asked them if there are NPAs around the vicinity. According to them, it is really safe. We thought we were really doomed because the stuff that we have with us were only good for a day tour. Luckily, the owner of canteen where we ate upon reaching the foot of the mountain offered us a room in their house FOR FREE. Yes, for free. So, we stayed that night at their home. We were hesitant and kinda paranoid to the point that we thought that they were NPAs who are hiding behind those lighthearted smiles. But they weren’t because we woke up next morning safe and whole. We left at 5:30 in the morning to catch the first trip to Amuyong.