Once upon a time in Sagada /2

continuation...

Unfamiliar

Day 2 sees yourself rising to unfamiliar twittering under the

pine-scented canopy.

The class is scheduled to troop to the Sumaguing Cave. A

leisurely walk in the park it is not, you learn. No wonder you

were told to wear shorts and hiking boots.

You walk through ricefields. Native huts made of reeds and built

triangular and squat seduce you with the aroma of freshly

brewed mountain coffee. Black swine in their pens grunt

suspiciously at you. Dogs bark at you, noisy intruders reeking

of cologne, sun block, bath soap and 2-in-1 shampoo.

Panting like tired dogs, the class is led by Sir B. to a waterfall

and you all take a dip in the natural pool at the base. It is a place

all your own, save for a couple of white males and their Filipina

friends, the sight of whom move the boys to a malicious grin

and the girls to a smirk.

As the entire class strips to bath suits, you choose to doze off

to the rumbling of the waterfall. You can't take the chilling

temperature of the pool.

A hunky, tanned Hollywood type comes traipsing in trunks and

sun glasses, his German shepherd in tow, toward the pool.

Perhaps flustered by your group's overwhelming presence, plus

those of the unlikely visitors who came in pairs, he is nowhere

to be seen when you take a second look, vanishing among the

limestones and the ricefields.

Onward to Sumaguing Cave. You hear others getting cranky,

complaining of back pain, leg cramps, shortness of breath, and

profuse perspiration. At last, you, cranky you, are no longer

alone.

Perhaps feeling tired himself, Sir B. lets the class drop by the

''hanging'' coffins which the natives have placed in a rather

inaccessible part of the ridge. How they took pains to make the

pine dugout coffins appear ''suspended'' among the rocks is one

for Harry Houdini to unravel.

The area you inspect seems to have been built for noisy

tourists. The trail leading to the display of coffins is,

surprisingly, cemented, and the mountainside is guarded by iron

railings.

Rats, the coffins have been vandalized! The floor is strewn with

the ribs and skullcaps of the mummies. You are suddenly

shamed by the irreverent looting of a gentle people's ancestral

domain.

Gasping

The huge mouth of the Sumaguing Cave cannot match your

gasping disbelief.

I'll come home a proud man, you think. You never expected a

cave this beautiful can ever be found in the Philippines, much

less in Luzon. Practically everyone is applauding even as one

has yet to get in. If only caves could bow in acknowledgement.

Sir B. had hired two native guides to take the class inside the

cave. Each guide carries a lantern, a hasag, like the one used in

lowland barrios before the advent of electricity. Tucked in their

belts are flashlights and who knows what other speleological

implements.

You clamber down the cave's esophagus, engulfed by your

hesitant eagerness for adventure, as the light filtering through

the aperture slowly dims. It smells Paleolithic here.

One guide points his flashlight at the cave's ceiling. ''Bats,'' he

says, with the conviction of Indiana Jones. Then he draws the

class' attention to the accumulation of bat dung on the floor.

''Guano deposits,'' he claims with equal authority.

The other guide lights the way with a burning slat of pine wood,

which gives out a flame like a torch. Even near the aperture, you

can already see interesting stalactite and stalagmite formations.

But you are very much concerned about your safety. Each of

you in the class carries a backpack, and you are told to clamber

up and down rocky formations into what amounts to--you are

informed later--a depth equivalent to 10 stories!

The surreal formations have been unofficially baptized with

names of things that they resemble in the outside world--or so

you learn from the guides. There are twin towers, a round table,

a pig, a frog, a pregnant woman, and so on.

At lunchtime, you park your harassed carcasses by an

underground river. Food, that's what you've been carrying all

along. At last, you think, you'll be walking the remaining

distance in relative ease.

You notice a long banana leaf that had apparently been emptied

of its buffet. You notice names carved onto the soft limestone

walls.

to be continued...