Saturday, August 30, 2008

The Mulao Adventure

Once again, the Swerver-Immortalundead tandem (better known as Liloan Trippers) braved the perils and hindrances and found themselves once again in Liloan, with our fellow freelancer and photographer Eyean tagging along.

I will not enumerate the places we traveled here, because I've already done so in a previous blog. Instead, I will tell you about the (mis)adventure we had in the rivers of Mulao in our quest to find the boat-shaped stone that people were talking about.

The trip started in earnest around 12:30, just after lunch near Wiggy's Beach Resort. The Liloan Trippers, together with our tour guides and transports Archie and Rolly, started motoring off to the far-flung and elevated barangay in Mulao. Once there, Archie picked up another guide, his friend Charlie. Charlie had warned Archie that the trek to the boat-shaped stone was a tough one but Archie thought Charlie was joking. The end was history.

After a few minutes' motor trip up the mountain, we started descending towards the river. Once there, we learned that we were going to wade into the waters, dressed in jeans and all. It's a good thing that we were lent slippers or it would have been more dangerous in shoes. All unprepared, the Liloan Trippers still chose to go forward with the adventure.


An hour's worth of currents, rocks and stones, and soft soil, we found ourselves in front of the awe-inspiring, dark colored boat-shaped rock. Our three local friends went through the obstacles like Legolas skipping lightly over snow, but the Trippers lagged behind blaming our unpreparedness. Still, we refused to give up. I wasn't able to take pictures because of the fear of getting my camera damaged since it didn't have a sling, but Eyean was able to. His pics will be shared later.



A few minutes were spent at the stone ship, where Archie decided to take a dip while Swerver, Eyean and I eyed the ship. It was a wonder. The three-storey structure precariously perched on two rocks with an approximately 2-meter gap between the two bases. What's amazing is that the bottom of the stone ship was shaped exactly like the bottom of a real ship. On close look, the thing was shaped like a Noah's Ark, which led may have led to its nickname "The Stone of Faith."
We decided to pack up and go back the way we came after a while. The trip was smoother this time, because the Trippers were now confident of their traveling skills. However, we still lagged behind because our legs felt like rubber and were heavy as steel. But the trip was shorter this time. At the end of the road, our three guides got us some coconuts to replenish our lost salts and water.



~ Immortalundead

1 comment:

Ginger said...

Wow this is very interesting..

Lots lots~ <3

Ginger