The hike that exceeded expectations

Hello, outdoor-loving people!

It's the weekend again, and, of course, I am back to the great outdoors. This time, we are going to explore new trails with the help of different topography and heat maps by James and Alton, who are the ones that can understand different signs and details on the map, alongside @mariasalve and Spencer. I am not afraid to get lost on the trail when they're leading. Haha

On my previous blog, we initially planned to hike to Budlaan Falls via the new trail that we explored, but we ended up ditching the first plan and proceeded with the new one.

This time, we're really pushing it to Budlaan Falls.

I woke up around 5:20 AM, had a quick shower, and left my place at around 5:50 AM. We were supposed to be meeting at 6 AM. I walked from my place to Jollibee since it is just a 500-meter walk.

Our exploration started at Jollibee Talamban, the one near Talamban Gym, not the one in Gaisano Grandmall Talamban where the usual meeting place for Budlaan Falls usually is.

We had a quick breakfast at Jollibee for 40 minutes. We started walking from Jollibee to Bonita Home for Girls via North General Hospital; we just covered 2.3 kilometers, and this part is mainly a concrete road.

Going to Bonita is not a walk in the park, or at least not for me. There are parts that are steep, and the concrete is a little bit slippery. We stopped at Bonita for a breather before we hit the trail.

The first part of the trail was a subtle ascent with loose rocks which I had a hard time walking on. It led to the part of the trail which we already covered last week, where there is a house that sells cold soft drinks.

We couldn't resist a cold Coca-Cola, even though it was early in the morning. We had to go back a few meters to find the trail that supposedly connects to Sitio Baugo (the entrance to Budlaan Falls).

This trail is new to us; we followed the visible trail going down with no idea what the trail looked like. The trail is mostly shaded, but we were sweating a lot. Haha. It goes down and up until we arrived at a few houses where we asked a local for the way to Sitio Baugo.

I was already drained from the first part of the trail; we hiked for a few kilometers, but we already had a view of the surrounding mountains which kind of energized me a little bit. It was a slow ascent with a trail that can accommodate a motorcycle for the locals living there.

Finally, we reached this wide flat land which we thought would be a perfect place for camping. It also had an overlooking view of the city. We rested there for a little bit before we descended. Going down, we exited through a gate, Haha, which I think is the only easy way to the prospective campsite. It may have been private property. Lol

We reached the road that leads to Sitio Baugo.

We finally reached the junction to Budlaan Falls where some stores are located. The first order of business was to buy an ice-cream. It suddenly rained, and luckily we were able to arrive there before it happened. We waited there for the rain to stop, but a truck from a local bakery arrived. Haha. We bought bread and munched on it before resuming our hike.

Finally, the food trip was done. We continued hiking directly to Budlaan Falls. It was Spencer's first visit there, so we decided to visit the falls.

We were shocked when we saw a concrete road going down. It wasn't there the last time we hiked there. Haha, and we understood why (Barangay Election is coming). Lol

We hiked until we arrived at the junction going down to the falls.

Going down was also not easy. It was steep and slippery.

We arrived at the falls and were shocked that the water wasn't brown. Haha. There were no other hikers at that time. We stopped there for a couple of minutes admiring the view.

We continued our hike to the most exciting part of the trail. We had to climb a steep wall at the side of the falls and climb up with the support of a makeshift rope. James even had to remove his shoes because they were giving him a hard time on the rocks; the outer sole of his shoes was no longer capable of gripping on the rocks.

After all those struggles, we arrived safely at the last falls. We rested there for a little bit. We then continued our hike going to a house that sells fresh coconut.

After a refreshing drink of the coconut water and the flesh of a young coconut, we made our way to the basketball court where we planned to have our lunch. But when we arrived there, there was an aspiring politician running for a barangay-level position giving 5kg of rice to its locals.

Good thing there was someone selling barbecue there. We ordered food and ate our lunch there.

We didn't stay long as it was super noisy there. Haha.

Our next goal was to reach Malubog Golf Course. We could already see dark clouds ahead of us and, lo and behold, it started pouring while we were on the trail. There was no roof to seek shelter; we continued walking until we saw a cluster of trees where we took shelter for a little bit. The four of us had umbrellas, but Alton had thrown away his umbrella the other week because it was rusted and stuck.

Our next goal now was to find shelter near the sari-sari store. The rain didn't stop. We finally made it to the store and sat on the wooden benches in front of the store while waiting for the rain to stop. We ordered one bottle of cold beer just to compensate for us sitting there.

It gave off 'Uncle' and 'Auntie' vibes while we enjoyed our drink. Haha.

And the rain stopped; we slowly made our way to my most hated part, the long, steep, and slippery concrete road going to Busay Holiday Pools.

After a slow and knee-shattering ascent, we made it to the highway. Our adventure didn't end there; we decided to continue walking on the road going to a waiting shed a little bit farther than the junction going to the Temple of Leah.

We were already tired at this point. We kept waiting for a jeep, but nothing arrived. We tried hitchhiking, but to no avail. Until a van stopped; we hopped in and paid 50 pesos to the city.

This was supposed to be a chill hike, but the trail going to Budlaan Falls was quite something. I also ate breakfast, which caused my steps to be super heavy. But in the end, it was quite an experience. It was fun spending the weekend sweating in the mountains rather than just sitting and sleeping at home. Until my next adventure!