I was four (4) years old when the Pinatubo volcano erupted. I remember it being a weekend, because my parents were in the house when I woke up (weekdays = work days in the office). I remember rubbing the sleep from my eyes and noticing that everything was dusty. I thought that somebody was just joking around – perhaps my mischievous cousin – and sprinkled dirt all over, much to the chagrin of my mother and grand aunt who was living with us at the time. It was obvious from the way their mouths were set that they were not at all happy with the amount of scrubbing and cleaning that they were doing. I asked “What happened?” , which they answered with a distracted “The volcano up north erupted.”. At four years old, I had no idea that this meant mass evacuation, destruction of irreplaceable properties and hundreds of death. To me it just meant that something happened up north, way too far to be of any concern to me. I remember shrugging it off and going back to the bed to get out of the way of the cleaning. I’m quite ashamed to admit that that was the last time that the eruption and its consequences entered my mind. I mean, subconsciously I knew that it happened and I am always reminded whenever I see the Aetas begging more money in the city during the holidays, but, like before, I only shrugged it off. When one of the departments in our office had a client/visitor from another country who requested to “see more of the Philippines”, Eric, our designated project manager for this trip, asked around randomly if anybody was interested to join  a day trip to Mount Pinatubo. A lot of people said ‘yes’ and our group very quickly grew into seventeen (17) people. The plan of just “joining” a tour from TRIPinas was obliterated and after adding just 30PHP per head, we had the luxury of a private tour. It is inclusive of round trip air conditioned van transfers to and from Manila, round trip 4X4 transfers, conservation fees, our own local guide and the service of a tour coordinator. Our day started extremely early: we had to be up by half past midnight on Valentine’s weekend to make it to the designated two-thirty AM (02:30) meet up at the McDonalds in El Pueblo, Ortigas. Considering that there were three (3) of us — Cha, Jun and myself who had a mini-sleep over — and only one bathroom, this posed a bit of a challenge. Thankfully we were all quick bathers and we arrived a good twenty (20) minutes earlier at the meet up point. Our vans were to go straight from Ortigas to the base camp, and McDonalds was the last stop where one can buy last minute supplies/food for the trip. After buying breakfast and lunch, along with an incredibly quick meeting with the coordinator, we were off. The drive to the base camp was uneventful and was spent with futile efforts of squeezing in a few more minutes’ worth of sleep. We arrived at the base camp in Barangay Sta. Juliana at around five-thirty (05:30) and it was still dark. We milled around with other tourists and relieved our coffee-filled bladders as the coordinator signed us all up and got us our 4×4 vehicles, the ride of which started at the break of sun rise, a few minutes before six o’clock (06:00).

Silly old me thought that the 4×4 ride was just a fancy draw for the tourists; I knew that we had to cross through lahar-infested roads but I had no idea that the giant river-turned-into-a-road was that rough. The “road” was literally littered with rocks and boulders, the smallest of which were as large as my fist. We held o to every available handle for fear getting concussions. Don’t get me wrong, the driver was going as slow as he could and was very careful, but considering that there was no real path and there were multiple river crossings, the ride was indeed rough.

The sun was already up by the time (at around quarter to seven) we reached the jump off point of the trek although, thankfully, the air still had the biting chill of the holiday wind. We were one of the first ones there and after shaking out our legs, we pushed on. I found the trek to be quite difficult — although I’m not in the best of shape and I literally did nothing to prepare — mostly because the ground was sandy. It’s very difficult to walk uphill in sand because it felt like getting your feet stuck in taffy every agonizing step. The view wasn’t very great, just a lot of rocks, no clear path and the occasional river wading (tip: wear open shoes). The incline wasn’t overly steep but it was consistent and there were almost no flat surfaces. About half an hour in I was winded and I felt the familiar signs of hypoglycemia setting in — my hands were getting clammy and I can feel my every bead of sweat on my forehead — so I was popping in hard candies all the way to the top. According to our guide, the path we took was about five (5) kilometers per way. There were “rest huts” placed every few kilometers but our group only took a break when we chanced upon the sign stating that we only had one kilometer to go. The clearing had two huge huts and a basic toilet, thankfully, so there was no real need to go in the rocks.

We saw this sign before we set out for the last kilometer and had a few laughs about it. Personally I don’t believe that anyone can make that final stretch in under twenty minutes; the incline was really steep and we had to make our way through huge boulders that were as big as a person.

Finally, finally, we were at the top and I tell you no lie when I say that my tiredness evaporated when I saw this view. I could not believe that this view was created out of mother nature’s violence. According to Wikipedia, the eruption was so big and so powerful that it lowered the earth’s temperature by a few degrees.

We went down cemented stairs down to the lake and just enjoyed the view. Unfortunately swimming wasn’t allowed and there were no boatmen up that day because of the fiesta preparations down at the base camp. We, of course, took a lot of pictures and after having our lunch (more like brunch, really, at nine-thirty), TRIPinas coordinator Anne sat us down for a quick history lesson on the volcano.

Of course, more than a few people’s attentions wavered and they set off in a contest to build a rock formation with the most number of stones in it. The end result was all very zen and I was told that a lot of the other tourists posed with my officemates’ creations.

We had a mini-“graduation” ceremony where we were handed certificates proving that we conquered the Volcano that caused so much damage and put the Philippines on the international map.

At around half past ten we packed up and made our way down. My biggest mistake was that I didn’t put on any sun block. Because our pace was infinitely more leisurely the way down, it was well past noon when we made it back to the 4×4’s. It was a testament of how tired I was that I actually fell asleep during the rocky ride. When we got back to the base camp, we were incredibly dusty so we availed of the shower that was offered at fifty (50) pesos, after which we were off back to Manila. During the ride back I couldn’t help but be amazed at the fact that life moved on after such devastating damage. I was very glad and grateful to have been invited to see and enjoy yet another proof that we Filipinos are indeed one tenacious bunch.

UPDATE: Silly old me forgot to post details of TRIPinas. Their website is TRIPinas Travel and Tour Ventures and you can contact them through these numbers: mobile: 09179037672 landline: (632) 477-7446