monkey madness
as many of you know, for the last week or so i have been on the island of palawan. famous for it's underground river, limestone cliffs, and 2001 tourist abduction, palawan is a wonderful place to stay. i highly recommend it.
the island is quite rural - more so than luzon, and on par with mindoro. the bucolic nature of the place lends itself to, among other things (like mosquito bites), many wild animal sightings. for instance, last week i went to sabang, a beach town near the world's longest underground river. to get to said river, one can either take a boat along the coast or endure a 2-3 hour hike. as i greatly enjoyed my hikes in luzon, i decided to opt for the latter. mistake? in retrospect no, but at the time i thought i was going to die. let me explain.
the first leg of the trip is easy enough. in fact, it's quite gorgeous. you walk along the beach for a good 20 minutes until you get to a place offering tours of a mangrove forest. then, after scaring a few - okay, one - small crocodile back into the river, you cross the world's ricketiest bridge; i had some doubts as to its integrity, especially after seeing the crocodile. then the real hiking begins. for another 40 minutes or so, you walk up and down along a well-stoned path, which is set back a bit from the coastal cliffs. eventually, you get to a ranger station where you have to register (so they know about where to start looking for your body). at this point, i had a moment of fatal optimism. i thought that i had perhaps already gotten to the end of the hike, and was feeling good about the fact that i wasn't too tired yet. little did i know...
the second part of the hike is really like the last 9/10ths of the hike. there are two trails from the ranger station to the underground river: the monkey trail and the jungle trail. as the former was closed, i took the jungle trail. at first, it was just a slow incline. eventually, the hill got much steeper and i found myself cursing the roots and branches over which i kept tripping. exhausted people passed me going the other way, so i just figured they had come up the other side of this hill. the top must be close. ha.
after about 30 minutes of constantly staring up the trail and wondering when i'd get to the top of the *&%@# hill, i passed a group of flustered women who 'noted' in passing, "watch out for the monkeys." ooh! monkeys! enticing, no? todd, staci and i saw a bunch of them in taiwan near alisan, and they seemed nice enough. todd even had a heart-to-heart with one of them. what did we call him? larry? i like to name things larry. anyway, sure enough, in about five minutes a monkey jumped out from the leaves and onto the path. initially i thought, "aww...what a cute monkey." however, it soon became apparent that this monkey was not of the adorable sort. after taking his picture, i tried to sort of shimmy by him. not only did he not move, but he BARED HIS TEETH and "growled" at me. this was a problem. i'm quite sure that like any powerful filipino official, he just wanted a bribe. unfortunately, i was both unable and unwilling to comply, so the stand off began. i made some more attempts at getting by him, he made some more noises. in return, i removed my bag, thinking that perhaps i could whap him like the taiwanese yip-yip dogs that always try to bite your heels. it was then that i realized we weren't alone; like the scene in Jurassic Park in which the unfortuate human notices that while he is watching one Velosa Raptor, two more are about to tear him limb from limb, i suddenly realized that there were about seven other monkeys hiding in the bushes. what to do?
i decided to make a go for it and tried to run past the Godfather monkey. he screamed at me, which of course scared the shit out of me. i screamed back, then ran; amazingly, he looked, amused, and then just walked away - just like that. i guess in lieu of food bribes, they accept entertainment in the form of scared foreignors who make odd noises and run away. it was all quite anti-climactic in the end, but i suppose that's better than a final showdown of me and my bag versus eight monkeys. they have really big teeth, you know.
anywho, the monkey incident was a little unnerving, but i pressed on, believing the top of the hill was near. and it was. so i went joyfully down...to the the bottom of another, steeper, rockier, rootier hill. after i hit my head on yet another low-hanging vine, i kind of wanted to cry. now, you may say i was just being weak and ridiculous, but you have to remember that i was walking alone, had just been attacked by a troup of monkeys, and was being dogged by mosquitos and other bugs everywhere i went. it was adding up, and i wanted to throw something. after much huffing and puffing, i made it up the hill, around some rocks, down some hill, up again, etc. etc. until, at last, i could hear the ocean again. it was the best sound i've ever heard; i probably wasn't going to die in that forest.
long story less long, i did get to the underground river. it was very cool inside (good because i was very hot), and i got my own tour because i was alone. i would recommend it to anyone who likes caves. however, take the boat.
the island is quite rural - more so than luzon, and on par with mindoro. the bucolic nature of the place lends itself to, among other things (like mosquito bites), many wild animal sightings. for instance, last week i went to sabang, a beach town near the world's longest underground river. to get to said river, one can either take a boat along the coast or endure a 2-3 hour hike. as i greatly enjoyed my hikes in luzon, i decided to opt for the latter. mistake? in retrospect no, but at the time i thought i was going to die. let me explain.
the first leg of the trip is easy enough. in fact, it's quite gorgeous. you walk along the beach for a good 20 minutes until you get to a place offering tours of a mangrove forest. then, after scaring a few - okay, one - small crocodile back into the river, you cross the world's ricketiest bridge; i had some doubts as to its integrity, especially after seeing the crocodile. then the real hiking begins. for another 40 minutes or so, you walk up and down along a well-stoned path, which is set back a bit from the coastal cliffs. eventually, you get to a ranger station where you have to register (so they know about where to start looking for your body). at this point, i had a moment of fatal optimism. i thought that i had perhaps already gotten to the end of the hike, and was feeling good about the fact that i wasn't too tired yet. little did i know...
the second part of the hike is really like the last 9/10ths of the hike. there are two trails from the ranger station to the underground river: the monkey trail and the jungle trail. as the former was closed, i took the jungle trail. at first, it was just a slow incline. eventually, the hill got much steeper and i found myself cursing the roots and branches over which i kept tripping. exhausted people passed me going the other way, so i just figured they had come up the other side of this hill. the top must be close. ha.
after about 30 minutes of constantly staring up the trail and wondering when i'd get to the top of the *&%@# hill, i passed a group of flustered women who 'noted' in passing, "watch out for the monkeys." ooh! monkeys! enticing, no? todd, staci and i saw a bunch of them in taiwan near alisan, and they seemed nice enough. todd even had a heart-to-heart with one of them. what did we call him? larry? i like to name things larry. anyway, sure enough, in about five minutes a monkey jumped out from the leaves and onto the path. initially i thought, "aww...what a cute monkey." however, it soon became apparent that this monkey was not of the adorable sort. after taking his picture, i tried to sort of shimmy by him. not only did he not move, but he BARED HIS TEETH and "growled" at me. this was a problem. i'm quite sure that like any powerful filipino official, he just wanted a bribe. unfortunately, i was both unable and unwilling to comply, so the stand off began. i made some more attempts at getting by him, he made some more noises. in return, i removed my bag, thinking that perhaps i could whap him like the taiwanese yip-yip dogs that always try to bite your heels. it was then that i realized we weren't alone; like the scene in Jurassic Park in which the unfortuate human notices that while he is watching one Velosa Raptor, two more are about to tear him limb from limb, i suddenly realized that there were about seven other monkeys hiding in the bushes. what to do?
i decided to make a go for it and tried to run past the Godfather monkey. he screamed at me, which of course scared the shit out of me. i screamed back, then ran; amazingly, he looked, amused, and then just walked away - just like that. i guess in lieu of food bribes, they accept entertainment in the form of scared foreignors who make odd noises and run away. it was all quite anti-climactic in the end, but i suppose that's better than a final showdown of me and my bag versus eight monkeys. they have really big teeth, you know.
anywho, the monkey incident was a little unnerving, but i pressed on, believing the top of the hill was near. and it was. so i went joyfully down...to the the bottom of another, steeper, rockier, rootier hill. after i hit my head on yet another low-hanging vine, i kind of wanted to cry. now, you may say i was just being weak and ridiculous, but you have to remember that i was walking alone, had just been attacked by a troup of monkeys, and was being dogged by mosquitos and other bugs everywhere i went. it was adding up, and i wanted to throw something. after much huffing and puffing, i made it up the hill, around some rocks, down some hill, up again, etc. etc. until, at last, i could hear the ocean again. it was the best sound i've ever heard; i probably wasn't going to die in that forest.
long story less long, i did get to the underground river. it was very cool inside (good because i was very hot), and i got my own tour because i was alone. i would recommend it to anyone who likes caves. however, take the boat.
posted by bethany at 08:53
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