Leather Tape Foru Couches?

San Pablo and the mystical Mount Banahaw Discovery Weekend

Après une soirée mémorable, et une fin de nuit à se balader dans le quartier avec un de mes colloc', au bord de la rivière, on part avec Marie Laure à 5h du matin, pour échapper au traffic en sortant de Manille.
On arrive donc à San Pablo, Laguna à 8h30 du matin, pas très fraîches, mais motivées. Nous voilà partie à l'attaque d'une montagne donc les légendes (et le Lonely Planet), disent qu'elle est habitée par des esprits, mais especially by sects! After beginning his trip on foot, before understanding how to take good jeepney, one finally arrives at one of the last villages, after a road intersected by dirt roads.
was a bit like being at the end of the world, with mountains all around. A strange thing that we try to clarify later, the village has a curfew, from 22 to 4am ... mystery ....

Arrivals near a river, you get accosted by an old woman who could very well be a gypsy fortune teller who offers us a guide, when asked the price, "it's a gift, it's up To You " we will not look any further. It makes us so
buy for 50 pesos a bag of candles, we will subsequently turn around. Here begins the adventure. For the sensitive minds, know that cash is here on the ground of a sect, without really knowing or wanting to, but never mind, what follows is important!

Guides (because ultimately, it gave us both), take us first into a sort of cave, where there is a statue of the Virgin Mary, with candles all around, they ask us to ignite, then the real journey begins in a tunnel more narrow, with only light that of a candle. Arriving in a sort of underground chamber, one of the guides we tend a cup with water from the river, and asks us to drink three sips.

It looks, wondering if our stomach will survive this affront, but stuck in a tunnel with strangers, you end up drinking three tiny sips, then wash your face with the same water. You end up out of the tunnel, about twenty meters and dozens of candles later (to add three new sips ...).

However, we also wanted to power up the mountain 'sacred'. We see them then prepare a bag with a tent, we will buy food, then tell us we should sleep on top, because the ascent to the summit take at least 8 hours .. mhhh is 10.30, with a start at 5am and a sleepless night for me, you say that this is not very reasonable, especially with our lack of training. They take us and see the waterfalls, which was not less athletic!

Indeed, the path is slippery with passages quite acrobatic, even dangerous, uphill climbing with ropes, and bridges over the gap, made from wet wood (ie ice), but as one is motivated we do not think (almost) no (well, yes, Marie Laure is glad to have as many candles lit)!

We meet on the way a hunter (with a real rifle, which worry some, like the machetes of our guides), but hey, all is well.
At the top is a cave with a little mystical drawings of strange and full of chocolate as an offering ...

The descent is somewhat difficult, always be careful not to fall, especially, do not fall!

Marie Laure and our guide

We were too low, very muddy and very tired. Is about to descend on San Pablo, the main town, to go to sleep at the hostel, but our guides will offer us a tent and sleeping 'for free'. And of course we accept! (What have we done ....), not sleep on a hard floor well, always muddy, very wet, with temperatures cooler than normal .... it does not look very well in the morning, especially since I was not exactly reassured (waking in the middle of the night, a brother of the guide would pris un couteau dans le ventre? on n'a pas vraiment réussi à comprendre ce qui s'était passé).

Celle-ci est juste pour le plaisir des yeux, et de la photo 

On redescend au lever du jour, débarquant à 7h30 au Jollybee (le fastfood local) : ouf, des toilettes, des pancakes, et du café, on est reparties pour une journée. San Pablo est une ville envahie par les tricycles, mais aussi par des gens adorables, c'est jour de marché, et comme d'habitude on nous regarde passer, mais cette fois, plus que pour des touristes, on passe pour de missionaires (mmhh chouette....).

We toured one of seven volcanic lakes in the region, the beautiful Lake Sampaloc, filled with red water lilies and floating houses, before returning to Manila, and sleep (finally).

This little green weekend made me think a little about spirituality in the Philippines.

This country is, of course (thanks to the efforts of the Spaniards, very good at this kind of operation), deeply Catholic, there are churches everywhere, the Mass is the same in churches under construction in private schools, the Mass is done at the beginning of each course, we pray before eating, we sign before boarding a jeepney, in short, it smells of religion, full nose. But it's not just Catholicism, the Southern Philippines (where it's dangerous), is a Muslim region, and trends animist / deists are still strong. It is finally, and sometimes a little scary, a huge number of cults: Jehovah's Witnesses have set up shop, with large houses, like the Iglesia Ni Cristo celebrates, their churches are by far genus Cheese Cake, and they recover 10% of revenues from all their followers ... and it is not all such organizations "spiritual" swarming, as in any country in need of moral support!

is the kind of church Iglesia Ni Cristo sect.

Is this a good thing? They may say that religion brings, it keeps cohesive communities, having a social network, the nuns were thought to do good work in the slums of Manila or elsewhere, I still think most things related to the Church are a big bullshit, especially their policy of family planning! The Philippine Church

refuses any form of sex education, abortion is punished as a murder, contraception is a legend, and we end up with girls of 17 or 19 years, barely out of high school, pregnant, forced all abandon, studies, social life and hope of success, to raise their children. Knowing that in most cases the father is gone ... Indeed the Bible does it not say "Multiply you will populate the world," suggests that men have taken literally ... (This is not an invention, but what a Filipino replied, when asked how, being as believers, men in the Philippines could have as many mistresses)

Hypocrisy, giving rise to many disappointments ... Divorce frowned, young women just married single mothers find themselves with a husband gone somewhere else, but their life to them is over ...