The Journey to 100 Mountains (Part 4 of 6)

This series marks three major milestones: surviving 10 awesome years of mountaineering, ticking-off one of the Seven Summits of the World, and finally crossing out my ultimate bucket list destination: Peru's Machu Picchu - and in doing so, reaching two new continents! As I inch closer to the one hundred mark, let me run you through mountains 71 to 80 - from the African titan to the Philippines' southernmost mystical peak.

#71: Mt. Kilimanjaro (5,895 MASL) | Kilimanjaro, Tanzania

We had our first glance of Kilimanjaro on our way to our hotel in Moshi town from the airport. The sheer size of the mountain juxtaposed by the vast farms of sunflower and corn in the Tanzanian flat lands can be very intimidating. 'I'm finally here!' - I thought - watching the snow-capped titan from the roadside. It was my first time setting foot on a continent outside Asia and it was a quite a long and tiring journey from Manila to Bangkok to Addis Ababa to Kilimanjaro which took around 15 hours long (excluding layover time), crossing 5 time zones.

The imposing Kilimanjaro rising above the African plain.

Normally, Kilimanjaro is climbed at a minimum of 7 days to have ample time for acclimatization considering that the summit is at almost 6,000 MASL and if you're taking the Machame route, you'll need to gain around 4,000 meters in altitude (Machame gate is at 1,700+ MASL). But considering budget constraints (middle class Filipino mountaineers are normally stingy when it comes to climb budgets. hahaha!), we took the 6-day Machame-Mweka route which just have a dismal 75% summit success rate compared to the 85% when doing the 7-day itinerary. True enough, only three out of our 5-person team was able to reach the summit.

Almost half of the marker is buried in compacted snow! 

High altitude climbs are especially challenging to Filipinos since our country's highest peak is just at 2,900+ MASL - which is not high enough to prepare for the thin air of altitudes beyond 4,000 MASL. In fact, in Nepal, 'mountains' below 3,000 MASL are just considered 'hills' - how's that for a comparison. This climb has been challenging due to the compacted snow towards the summit assault which nearly killed me when I slipped and slid on the icy slope in pitch-black darkness at 3am. This climb will definitely be part of my campfire stories.

The Journey to 100 Mountains (Part 3 of 6)

This batch of 10 mountains will bring you to the icy peaks of Japanese central alps, the hidden treasure of Davao Oriental, Cebu's popular peak and various mountains of Luzon.

70 down, 30 more to go!

I hope my knees would still hold up until then.

#61: Mt. Tenglawan (1,943 MASL) | Bakun, Benguet

It was June 12, and I was actually holding up a Philippine flag there. 

As part of the touted Bakun Trio, Mt. Tenglawan is known for its Carrot Peak. An imposing monolithic rock outcrop few meters from the summit. The trail towards this mountain will lead you to communities nestled at the mountain side, offering you views of vibrant green rice terraces as well as imposing waterfalls during rainy season (we climbed this in June by the way). Doing the Bakun Trio (Kabunian, Tenglawan and Lubo) has been popular among mountaineers in the advent of easier access to rentable transport. But in our case, we chose to travel to this area via local transport – which can only be accessed via public bus in La Trinidad only once a day (bus leaves at 6am). Travel time to Bakun Poblacion can range from 6 to 10 hours, depending on road situation – parts of the route are prone to landslides and can impede transportation and can sometimes force you to walk for the rest of the way, which happened in our case.

Dumaran, Palawan

The municipality of Dumaran is located northwest of Puerto Princesa. Oddly, this municiaplity only covers half of Dumaran Island (the other half is under the jurisdiction of the municipality of Araceli) while some barangays are located at the mainland Palawan. 

Tagged as the world's best Island (Travel + Leisure Magazine 2016), the province has a lot, lot more to offer aside from the popular destinations such as Coron, El Nido and Puerto Princesa. This is the third time that I was back in Palawan - where we went to San Vicente and Port Barton (maybe I'll write something for this) in 2015 and in 2016 we basked at the beaches and islands in the southern tip of the province, Balabac (a blog entry for that trip can be found here). 

So let me share three of my favorite shots from one of the not-known-now-but-soon-on-the-rise destinations in Palawan: Dumaran. 

#1. Beach-all-you-can 

Void of tourist traffic, you can enjoy this very long stretch of white sand beach all to yourself provided that you have enough gear for beach camping. There are no resorts or any facilities for tourists here as of the moment so manage your expectations, this is not El Nido. 

Maraneg Beach can be found at the southern part of the Island