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Real outdoor adventure from a credit card 1
Source: Manila Bulletin
Author: Pinky Concha Colmenares
Date: 2001-10-08
 
Why do you climb a mountain? Because it’s there!



Numbers can do much to make an adventure. A four-hour trek to the summit of the 2,132-foot (650 meters) Mt. Dagoldol in Lobo, Batangas. Mountaineers labeled the trek as ''Level 2'', definitely not an intro climb meant to entice beginners.



This would be the first mountain climbing experience of eight people in the media group of ten, who were mostly aged between 23 to 33. Only I exceeded the average age, a fact which gave me much reason to be proud that I had kept pace – and enjoyed – the Shell-Citibank Gold Mastercard Southern Adventure Tour with people who were half my age!



Shell-Citibank Gold MasterCard



The ShellCitibank Gold MasterCard is the only credit card to offer a ticket to adventure which includes services that support such a motor holiday.



Such a “ticket” allows owners to pay the adventure package (organized by the Real Outdoor Adventure (ROA) group); gas up in any Shell station and get 2 percent rebates; purchase food supplies in Select convenience stores; and call for 24-hour roadside emergency assistance from the Wheelers Club international.



No boundaries!



As co-sponsor of the trip, Ford Motor Company provided the vehicles to transport the participants. No stranger to rugged terrain, the three vehicles provided – F-150 SuperCrew, Explorer, and chateau wagon – proved to be “built Ford tough.”



The adventurers meet



It would have been difficult for people to stay the same after that weekend involving an overnight mountain climbing expedition, an intro scuba dive, and a taste of rappelling over the cliffs of a small island in Taal Lake. Eight media people, two publicists, five mountaineers, and one Citibank executive – who had only met that day (except for Anjo, Joem and me) – took the adventure trail Friday, Sept. 21. They went home Sunday evening as friends.



The adventurers that weekend were: Charles Buban (Phil. Daily Inquirer), Philip Salvosa (Businessworld); Cornelius Mondoy (Phil. Star); Nicole Acuña (Mega Magazine); Mariel Chua (Cosmopolitan); Calen Legaspi (Gadgets); Anjo Perez and me (Manila Bulletin and Cruising Magazine) – for the media group. Sonya Perez-Bernas, AVP Citibank credit card marketing; Joem Hernandez and Ruel Soriano from Fuentes Publicity; and the UP-Mountaineers from the Real Outdoor Adventure (ROA) group – Jocelyn Saw, Albert Labrador, Jessie Go, Mike Soriano and Choy Aquino.



Day One, we climb a mountain



The unlikely friendships started with a 20-minute banca ride from Balai Resort in San Juan town, to the staging point of the climb to Mt. Dagoldol. After five minutes of flat land, what everyone thought would “just be a media tour” turned out to be too real for some unused muscles. The trail not only inclined by more than 45 degrees, it also skirted cliffs veiled by trees, shrubs and vines. My first lesson was to ignore the cliff and concentrate on putting one foot in front of the next – for there was only space for one foot!



In some inclines, we had to almost run up without a pause, because to negotiate the path slowly meant heaving your body step by step.



Yet no one dared say what I now know we all were waiting to hear – “I can’t do it anymore. I want to go back!” There would have been at least four of us who would have joined the trek back.



And so we all climbed on. Anjo, who fits into size triple XL, later confessed that what kept him on was the thought: “How will they carry me down if I collapse?” So huffing, and puffing, and yet still smiling, the good natured Anjo kept on, a camera in hand, clicking away when he could.



On the other hand, Joem, who hardly slept three hours the night before, and then drove the 130 kms from Alabang to San Juan, Batangas, began to complain about “hearing a buzzing sound in his ears” and “feeling his temple throbbing.”



Philip of Businessworld, quietly walked on, many times “feeling his heart beat too fast” and “seeing some black spots before his eyes.”



Tall and muscular Calen presented the impression that he was at home in this environment. He is a member of the UPM, the same organization as the founders of the outfitter who had designed the adventure tour. “It took a mountain climbing expedition to make me find out that the outdoors was not for me,” he told me along the trail. “But I just finished it because I was afraid they would call me a wimp!” So he continued on the trail, uncomplaining, and striding faster than the rest of us.



But back to the trail on Day One, we all kept our thoughts to ourselves. And almost heroically, we silently battled with our own physical limitations.



I had prepared for the trek, although no training could have given me an idea of what I would be going through! Mt. Dagoldol had many surprises that my daily 2.2-km walk/run only answered for the cardio workout. Even the 5k that I did a few days before the actual climb was insignificant to the demands of that mountain trail. And my travel writers climbing experience in the Swiss Alps ten years ago was just too long to make a difference.



Towards the last half hour of the four-hour trek, (which, by the way, included a lunch stop at a waterfalls), I began to think this was a stupid endeavor. Why do people climb mountains? “Because it’s there!” – they said.



When I sat down in the valley near the campsite, I began to dislike the others who were standing on the peak nearby, waving and shouting at me to join them for the view.



The silence of a magnificent view



The view on Peak One was silently magnificent! Perhaps because everyone was tired from the climb, or the wind was carrying our voices away too fast, it was so silent up there. Suddenly, each of us moved away from the other, to sit, lie, or stand alone by ourselves. It was like we did not want our thoughts to be heard while we marveled at that picture of the sky, sea and the forest – all viewed from the top of Peak One.



At last! The campsite



In a while, we moved to the campsite, about three minutes walk from that peak. There, Choy and Mike had prepared our tents. A plastic tube carried water from a natural spring nearby to the site. In front of everybody, some of us started their bathing rituals – all minus the soap, prohibited there for being unfriendly to the environment.



The dinner was delicious – not because we were all tired but because we were surprised at the cooking skills of these mountaineers. Choy cooked up a spaghetti sauce the traditional way – starting from the tomatoes. Mike could do perfect omelets with the inside still a little uncooked. Josaw produced fresh garden salad with lettuce and tomatoes. Someone opened a pack of cooked chicken; and of course, the remnants of breakfast and lunch, some Jollibee sandwiches.





 

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