English - A Feature Presentation
Holy & Eccentric - Mt. Banahaw
 |
| The Holy Mountain The class of 10-VBA went around the area of Mt. Banahaw, also known as the Holy Mountain. This was done during their Educational Outbound trip held last September 28, 2012. |
Mt. Banahaw is a strange place. That's not to say anything offensive about it; I myself confess that strange is somewhat of a compliment in the context I think of. It's a strange place because so much of culture, tradition, and history has been retained in it, whereas nearly everywhere else is filled with modernity. Before we got to the Mt. Banahaw area, we witnessed extremely annoying construction trucks, stoplights, mall signs, and Pizza Hut delivery banners: all of these we saw about 15 minutes before arriving. It was ridiculous. However, you could feel a change in the atmosphere once you went in.
Ready to greet you at the Mt. Banahaw area are devotees of the various forms of indigenous folk Christianity that surround the place. We noticed the gate to Ciudad Mistica de Dios, an international church that showed tons of flags from many different places. Being a fan of world culture, of course I tried to look at the names there. There were flags from Zambia, Korea, etc. It was quite a surprise. We also went to a Church that had numerous nuns. It was outlined with pictures of Jose Rizal and various other national heroes; the locals believe that Rizal and the heroes are prophets sent from heaven.
 |
| The Husgado Cave The Husgado Cave is a small passageway that is said to be a test of your willpower. According to legend, those who are not injured will be forgiven of their sins for seven years. |
Then there's the pamumuwesto, a tradition in which a person traverses to the various stations scattered around Mt. Banahaw. We first went to the cave. It was tight, dark, and a bit damp. It was difficult to traverse, and a lot of us were worried about going in. However, to brighten up our spirits, Kuya Jansel, our troop leader, told us that even a person as sizable as Jessica Soho was able to make it through the entire cave. So most of us just thought: "If Jessica Soho can do it, why not us?" We took a pretty long time to get in because we still had to wait for some Korean fellows to go through.
We proceeded through the hyper-tiring calvary. It was an excruciating journey. It was tiring going up; nearly everyone kept stopping on occasion. We even noticed something that will be useful for the rest of our lives: the more we stop, the more tiring it gets the next time we start. It was even worse when we went downhill. It wasn't really tiring: it was dangerous. It was very easy to lose balance. The formation of the rocks made it stable enough to go through... at least.
There's also the belief with regard to the excruciatingly long stairs we had to climb. It is said that if you count the right number of steps, you get a wish. Kind of like a shooting star, but about 5000 times more tiring. All of those steps led to a lake of freezing cold water. It was the kind of water that is reminiscent of winter swimming in foreign countries. It was fun and refreshing, but at the same time you wish that it wasn't that cold.
I figured that the strangeness of Banahaw probably stops there, but it didn't fail to surprise me even further. On the way back to the bus, I noticed the strangest show of modernity possible: there was a store selling fake SD cards and USB mouses right next to the church of the mystics. It was surreal. It's not as traditional as I thought it was then: it only adds the the weirdness of the place. However, the weirdness was a breath of fresh air. We need a little bit of eccentricity every once in a while, and we got a month's full of it right at the mountain.
Show
0 Comments
prev
next
