We made a few hour stop at the Ranger Station before proceeding to Camp 2. The welcoming faces of the people made us quite relieved of the hour long habal-habal ride. After doing the pre-mountain hiking formalities with the Ranger Station personnel (who suggested that we can have a paluto or request for home cooking on a nearby sari-sari store), we took our lunch of steamy chicken tinola with the freshest cabbage I could imagine. Looking around the place, I found out that most of the children have similar physical features with those of the Andes people in South America, as I had seen on a documentary about people living on high altitude areas.
When all on the table was nothing but leftovers and we were already full to our hearts content, we started preparing for our hiking adventure to Camp 2, accompanied by Ate Nida, our tour guide. She told us that she had been a porter before and it was her first time as a tour guide, but she know the trail well. Moments after we left the Ranger Station, she offered to carry the baggage of one of my companion upon seeing that we are already catching our breaths just a hundred yards from there. I was surprised to see her nimble and strong, despite her age and the fact that she is a woman. Nevertheless, we continue to hike to Camp 2, passing on plantations carved on mountain slopes, pine forests and the most amusing part of the trail to me – the mossy forest.
