The Lakes of Kabayan
With tired, beaten feet, we continue hiking, this time to see the lakes of Kabayan.
This is us having snacks. Probably due to extreme tiredness, we decided to sit by roadside, looking down the ravine, and eat what's left of our trail food. Bad ass? No, just clouded judgment, I think.
Lake Ambulalakaw is said to be cleanest lake in Benguet. The lake gets its name from bulalakaw (shooting/falling star). Story says shooting stars fall/end up in this area, thus they named the lake after these falling stars.
Our guide warns us to keep our voices down so as not to attract unfavorable weather. According to him, when visitors in the area get loud, the weather immediately turns grey. But of course, with such scene, one cannot just express admiration silently.
After several minutes of enjoying the view, fog starts to engulf the lake from its far end. It is more like a scene from a movie where the fog slowly swallows its surroundings and it's now coming for us.
We take our guide's advice. We tone down, and the fog starts to disappear. Sometimes, you can't just simply believe things when you only hear them, and then it happens to you, too.
We trek to the next lake. We are all very tired, but our guide is determined to show us all the lakes, because it's part of the package, it's what we paid for. I have to give it to him for his determination to promote Kabayan to tourists by showing everything Kabayan has to offer.
This is lake Incolos. I'm standing on it. In this photo, I am jumping.
Earlier in our trek, we came into a small spot of grassland, and while I was enjoying the marsh, our guide heard me say, "Parang kumunoy," and he said we are yet to see a kumunoy later in the trek. This is what he was referring to. Basically, it's just the same as the one we've been to, but this one is a whole stretch of marshland.
Walking in this area is like walking in a waterbed. If you jump a little, you can totally feel you're not on solid ground. Wik explains that there's a body of water underneath, and then moss and grasses grew thick on its surface until the water is totally covered. If you think of it, it's kind of scary. But the feeling you get from walking in the soft grassy land, priceless.
On a regular day, I'd be horrified just thinking about myself being in the middle of a huge body of water, but at this point, I'd already surpassed things I'd never thought I'd be able to do. I couldn't take off of my hyperactive imagination that any moment this piece of land where I was standing would collapse and the lake buried underneath would swallow me whole. (Plus we're already too tired after for hiking for hours.) So l just enjoyed the moment and ran and jumped at this wide natural waterbed.
Lake Incolos got its name from its color--green. And of course, this lake doesn't just go without a story of its own.
According to locals, there was once a miner who found some gold in the area. He left the gold for his comrade to take care of, but when he came back, the gold was gone. The person he left it with claimed it was swallowed by a fish. So they hunted the fish, caught one, and butchered it, but found no gold in it. To this day, locals still believe that the fish that swallowed the gold still plying the running water. Perhaps the reason why until today, the locals could not find the fish that "swallowed" the gold is because it is in the water below.
This is us having snacks. Probably due to extreme tiredness, we decided to sit by roadside, looking down the ravine, and eat what's left of our trail food. Bad ass? No, just clouded judgment, I think.
Again, we trek, or more like, walk the paved roads until we reach the entrance back to the mossy forest.
First stop is lake Ambulalakaw. Getting here is easy since the good people of Ballay created stairs made of rocks and woods from the roadside up to the opening of the lake.
First stop is lake Ambulalakaw. Getting here is easy since the good people of Ballay created stairs made of rocks and woods from the roadside up to the opening of the lake.
Our guide warns us to keep our voices down so as not to attract unfavorable weather. According to him, when visitors in the area get loud, the weather immediately turns grey. But of course, with such scene, one cannot just express admiration silently.
After several minutes of enjoying the view, fog starts to engulf the lake from its far end. It is more like a scene from a movie where the fog slowly swallows its surroundings and it's now coming for us.
We take our guide's advice. We tone down, and the fog starts to disappear. Sometimes, you can't just simply believe things when you only hear them, and then it happens to you, too.
We then went to the next lake, Letep-Ngapos. Like Ambulalakaw, Letep-Ngapos has a mangrove. The lake is already covered with thick fog when we got here, rendering an eerie feel.
The lake has this lone mangrove tree near the shore that's perfect for picture-taking.
The legend behind this lake is that there was once a young man who dove into its waters, while holding a lit torch, probably looking for something, and the torch didn't die as he dove. (That's all I can remember, sorry.)
This is lake Incolos. I'm standing on it. In this photo, I am jumping.
Earlier in our trek, we came into a small spot of grassland, and while I was enjoying the marsh, our guide heard me say, "Parang kumunoy," and he said we are yet to see a kumunoy later in the trek. This is what he was referring to. Basically, it's just the same as the one we've been to, but this one is a whole stretch of marshland.
Walking in this area is like walking in a waterbed. If you jump a little, you can totally feel you're not on solid ground. Wik explains that there's a body of water underneath, and then moss and grasses grew thick on its surface until the water is totally covered. If you think of it, it's kind of scary. But the feeling you get from walking in the soft grassy land, priceless.
On a regular day, I'd be horrified just thinking about myself being in the middle of a huge body of water, but at this point, I'd already surpassed things I'd never thought I'd be able to do. I couldn't take off of my hyperactive imagination that any moment this piece of land where I was standing would collapse and the lake buried underneath would swallow me whole. (Plus we're already too tired after for hiking for hours.) So l just enjoyed the moment and ran and jumped at this wide natural waterbed.
Lake Incolos got its name from its color--green. And of course, this lake doesn't just go without a story of its own.
According to locals, there was once a miner who found some gold in the area. He left the gold for his comrade to take care of, but when he came back, the gold was gone. The person he left it with claimed it was swallowed by a fish. So they hunted the fish, caught one, and butchered it, but found no gold in it. To this day, locals still believe that the fish that swallowed the gold still plying the running water. Perhaps the reason why until today, the locals could not find the fish that "swallowed" the gold is because it is in the water below.
The fourth lake is Lake Tabeo, the one where the camp is. But before going back to the campsite, we had to climb Junior Pulag. By this time, I was thinking, Sir Santiago, our guide, really overestimated our strength. Sobrang pagod na kaming lahat nito.
I've seen heard, witnessed, experienced inexplicable things while going around this town in Benguet. I felt a little scared everytime I do so, but I was more than afraid to die in the cold. Their stories filled with mystery keep me going.
