ten ₱esos

I walked down to Baguio Gold, expecting to play Sepak Takraw or basketball or walk further downhill to look at and photograph mines and miners. I couldn’t find Andy, Nick, Arnold, Pedring or Marcus. Some days some of the boys find work as helpers hauling aggregate and mixing concrete on construction sites or gathering stones for walls.

I found Mack at home alone, and I asked if he’d like to walk and hike to mines, the river, waterfall at the rock arch or whatever. He was game for a walk, so we went down the dirt road to see what we could photograph, as the ambient light was favorable.

We ambled along the lumpy, rocky road, saw the twin tram lines and ‘baskets’ that I’d seen weeks ago, saw mines and laborers, and I tried, near the road, to photograph the little waterfall and river.

But I couldn’t get a good view through the brush. I tried more than once in various places, a couple of which were perilous enough to make Mack very nervous. He said that his heart was pounding and “I am very scared.”

So I asked where I could get a better view of the river and the pool of muddy water. He said that he’d lead me down to the river if I’d like. “Let’s go,” I said.

We hiked back uphill a while and crossed over a creek, descended the rocky ravine to the river then followed it downhill by boulder-hopping and scrambling on jagged, flaky rocks, some of which broke apart in my hand or under foot.

Mack was surprisingly sure-footed while was wearing cheap flip-flops! I’m a ‘flatlander’ from Florida who was trying to guard my swinging camera and lens from damage, wishing that it were cushioned in a camera bag or backpack. Mack had been to the river previously and knew what he was doing and where he was going.

I had great fun. It was so different from flat, sandy Florida. It was like being in a different world, on boulders from bowling ball size to dining table diameter and the sharp, ragged rocks of the river bank.

I would have been must faster and carefree without my camera. But it was quite fun to pick my route back and forth across the river and hugging the rock walls at times, hoping that my toeholds wouldn’t flake off.

Good clean fun. I never got my shoes wet. I had thought that I’d necessarily get wet some times, yet we were always an inch to seven feet from the water.

The tunnel is behind Mack

We reached our goal, the river’s tunnel through the rock. My wish the past few weeks was to photograph the water spill from the other side, the waterfall side, and I couldn’t get a good vantage without a guide or rappelling gear. So here Mack and I are, upstream of the meager ‘waterfall.’

Here the creek drops a few meters before leveling through the tunnel

The big payoff: a photo of the ‘rear’ of the tunnel, though we can’t see the water falling at the other end

Mack reclines on rock of the type that tends to break-away

Mack is fond of asking, “Shall we?” when he wants to go. Well, what goes down must come up, so we hiked uphill toward civilization. A miner’s shack can be seen ahead.

Mack crosses footbridge ~ Yes, it’s tilted right (see tree trunks)

Mack wanted to make a picture … See my scratched legs