Getting a kick out of nature

THE KICKERS Weekend Adventure has been billed as a fun promotion of the natural beauty of the country and in part to "create an awareness of the existence of such exotic and majestic places." But what it truly is, is a marathon fitness program.

Consider: The group’s first outing late last year was spent in five days of kayaking in Coron, Palawan. The second, also late last year, was four days of whitewater rafting in Infanta, Quezon. Early this year, the group went on mountain trekking and cave exploration in the Cordillera.

This is the major prize in a raffle promo wherein the shopper gets a coupon for every P500 purchase of any Kickers product. Minor prizes are Jansport backpacks and mobile phones from Smart.

The three major winners who go on the weekend adventure may bring along one companion each. Obviously, for minors, organizers have to secure waivers from parents.

On Jan. 18-21, we joined "Cordillera Discovery" with these adventurous souls: Kickers marketing assistant Dino de Leon; Euro RSCG account manager Kelly Austria; Tribal Adventure Tours guide Andrew Chinalpan Jr.; and winners Jong Reyes and wife Charryl, Helen Valmadrid and bosom friend Sexy Mau Valiente, Mike Semala and kid brother Lucky. Ramon from Interisland Tours transported us on an MB1000 van.

Maybe the youngsters thought they’d just trip on the light fantastic on top of the rice terraces?

The first foreboding came when all cell phones lost contact the moment the van crossed the boundary beyond Nueva Vizcaya. Which meant, from hereon, there would be no communication with the outside world, no more chismis, giggles and endearments over the phone, as there were no cell sites in those godforsaken places.

Tricky way

After leaving their packs at the Native Village Inn on a mountaintop of Uhaj town in Ifugao, the group set out to find the hot spring Andrew said was located somewhere beyond the Hapao rice terraces.

It was midmorning, the sunlight was terribly bright on the cloudless mountaintop, the mind was afloat and the vision whirling from sleeplessness after some 11 hours of road travel. (Reminder: Get enough sleep and don’t drink alcohol the night before going on such trek.)

In postcards, the rice terraces look like one beauty spot that can be as effortlessly scaled as a stroll in the park. Most of these photos are aerial or top views of those terraces, so people are mostly in the dark as to their height.

The fact is, in some areas, one terrace can get as high as the Great Wall of China. It isn’t exactly scaling Mt. Apo, but the way can be as tricky. Remember that you are dealing with slippery matter here.

Kelly, at the head of one file, cast a sweeping glance at the panorama before her, vigorously shook her fists in the air, and declared, "I am the king of the world!" She made a few tentative steps on a pilapil (the bank of a rice paddy), then stopped short on her track.

The ever-narrowing pilapil and the muddy water below gave her vertigo, and now she was paralyzed with fear. It was a one-way footpath, so everyone behind her also had to stop and wait until she could muster the courage to proceed. From then on, she kept at the end of the line (and thus ended her short reign).

Dangerous steps

Carrying walking sticks and staffs for support and balance while negotiating their way across the rice paddies, the group tried to avoid looking at the water below as the pattern of the rows of rice plants, their reflection, the blinding light and the wind’s ruffling of the water made them dizzy. One misstep and you’d fall 20-30 ft below on the mud. You wouldn’t die, of course, but a fracture is still painful.

At some points, the group had to crawl up the sides of the terraces, grasping at weeds and grappling with whatever vines and roots of bushes there were. Forget civilization—here, you just have to behave like worms to survive. One misstep and...

About two hours later, after a few pratfalls on the mud and several scratches and bruises from all that hiking up ridges and trekking around the terraces, some from the group realized they should have refrained from smoking and taken jogging for a month before going on this trip. (Akala n’yo magpu-pose lang at magkodakan sa Ifugao rice terraces, ’no?)

What they found in the wilderness was a creek, the burbling spot where frigid water from the mountains and hot water from the earth converged. The reward for all those troubles was a warm soak in Jacuzzi-type water and a relaxing stretch on top of monolithic rocks (some as big as houses) while staring at the sky and the treetops above.

Risky undertaking

The wildest journey taken by the group was the exploration of Sumaging Cave, the biggest of those famous limestone caves of Sagada in Mountain Province. This one has a tunnel system that connects to several smaller caves a few kilometers away, most of them still unexplored.

On the onset, we asked the group if they carried their IDs with them. They turned up querulous faces, and we explained how dangerous, how risky was the undertaking they were about to do. Buti kung fracture lang—how about if the whole foundation would collapse, and there’d be a cave-in, who would identify their... huwag naman sana!

Okay, okay, it was gallows humor played upon kids, but what we were saying was, always be prepared when you go on such an adventure. It’s not as if you were negotiating through traffic in Manila.

With two Petromax lamps and a local guide authorized by the municipio, the group descended hundreds of natural stone steps into the cave. There were guffaws around as the group teasingly paired the pubescent guide with Sexy Mau, until the previously dusty steps became more and more slippery.

Tortuous path

At the mouth of the cave, Cha-cha revealed she was two weeks pregnant, and she might not be able to take the physical stress, so she couldn’t proceed.

Halfway into the cave, Kelly, the erstwhile king of the world, stopped and rested on a stone by a shoal, and made some excuses.

Of the four girls, only Sexy Mau gathered the courage to go with the boys. And she was the slimmest, too, so that negotiating through holes and crevices in the rocks wouldn’t be a problem.

The path into the bowels of the earth was tortuous, involving wading waist-deep (chest-deep to Sexy Mau) in the freezing water of an underground stream, worming through a fissure in the cave flooring (the trick is to haul your body into the hole facing backward), and hanging on to a rope on the cave wall above a rocky shoal.

The reward was a quick dip in the frigid water of a lagoon (8 ft at the deepest) and the hard massage of a low slender waterfall. That quickens the blood, and you emerge as a new person when you return from the underground.

Four days of such physical exertion, specifically weight-bearing activities, will not only harden the muscles and preserve bone density, but it can also increase agility, enhance the sense of balance, sharpen the wit, and fortify the soul.

And, yes, really, after surviving the Kickers Weekend Adventure, you, too, would feel like the king of the world.