Also known as our ‘Field Trip’. It was fun, had the opportunity to do stuff I don’t normally do or would do because it has to do with the heights. Overall it was goodbut I think I don’t think the one this year can match what we had last year.

Our class shared a bus with H. I think we were around 25 people, more or less, while H, as I recall, had around 30. Melissa sat next to me, Salvo was in front of us and Inah & Chuchay were in the seats next to us. We stopped in a gas station so people could buy food and use the restroom. Melissa and I went down to stretch our legs and buy gum. Since all the buses looked the same from the back, we kind of forgot which one was ours. Halfway through the trip, I was starting to fall asleep and when I did some beast, named Salvo, decided to tap the lenses of my shades. I used my karate chop skills to whack him, and he should have seen it coming since he woke me up! 

First stop: Cafe Amadeo. We had to wait in the bus for awhile because it was a small place and all the other sections were still getting their share of coffee. It felt nice drinking it since it was hot and it tasted really good. 2 spoons of cream and 2 spoonfuls of sugar make what I call an amazing cup of coffee. We didn’t really spend much time in the cafe since there wasn’t really much to do. Beryl made me smell the jar of coffee beans which smelled really funny. And here I thought all coffee beans smell good. There was also a small jar of Alamid Coffee. I found out that it was one of the most expensive kinds of coffee also that it comes from the poop of coffee-eating civets. It looked like a spotted jellybean to me.

Meet SMORS (Start, Mina, Ocampo, Ros, Salvo). The people i’m usually with in class and the people i’m usually grouped with. Practically in order, except switch Melissa and Marcus in the picture. Yes, I am the smallest and that fact became more obvious because I’m beside a skyscraper. We were supposed to have a SMORS picture in every place we go to but we forgot to take one in Kampo Trexo.

The path we were walking on going to the meet-up area was surrounded by tall plants so right after we entered the camp, I decided to scare Melissa. It was really funny because she screamed so loud. The first thing we did there, besides dropping our stuff, was warm up. We had this weird action to the song “My toes, my knees, my shoulders my head.” Right after that, there was an obstacle course. We had to climb up a wooden ladder and climb down the stairs, crawl under a net, climb up the ropes and go back down, cross a bridge, wall climb to the other end and lastly climb a bamboo ladder and go back down. During the wall-climbing, Melissa and I were teasing Marcus about his muscles because he has them but gets he insecure when you point them out. Melissa got to do all! Hooray for her!

First picture: Salvo, Me, Melissa. Second Picture: Me, Marcus (I look really tan next to him in this picture)

After the obstacle course, it was lunch time! Other classes were already doing the other activities. Our lunch time was a bit long so we weren’t doing anything for quite some time. 

We went here after lunch time. We had rappelling, wall climbing and zip-lining! It was pretty fun though but because of the height, my heart was beating so fast before trying each one out. Even our teachers got to do the activities which was interesting to watch. Go teachers!

This was me before wall climbing and during. I got to reach the top but as I got higher and higher my arms and legs started shaking because of how high it was. Melissa was shouting from below to look down but I couldn’t. Inah and Melissa went after me and then we went rappelling! 

The scary part of rappelling is when the girl tells you to lean back from the edge. After that, it was pretty good. I held on to it tighter than I was supposed to though so my decent was slow. Marcus went ahead of me, Salvo did the moon walk, Melissa dropped down elevator style and Inah was bouncing. Got over my fear of heights for awhile! 

Melissa and I before the zip-line! It wasn’t that long and it wasn’t that high up but I was excited for it since it was my first time. 

The after-shot. I wanted to try it again though but the waiting time is long and we were already supposed to go trekking! Maybe next time, in another place, i’ll try zip-lining again.

Before trekking, there was a big ass spider in one of the bushes and I’m not exaggerating when I mean HUGE. It was about the size of an adult’s palm. Probably bigger. Some of our batchmates were playing with it and took pictures with it. They were saying it’s probably poisonous and they were just touching it like it was a toy. They took the spider out from the bush though and transferred it to the tree. Another thing about me is that I am scared of spiders. Any insect i’m fine with. Lizards and frogs, which Melissa hates, i’m okay with. I was even chasing one of the frogs when I had a game in Nuvali. Even snakes are cool because they’re pretty bad ass but when it comes to spiders, I freak out. They’re fascinating from afar but I really hate it when they’re near me. Bad experience.

Trekking was really long! So much ups and downs and muddy places. I was with Melissa, Inah and Salvo half of the trip then for some reason I ended up walking with Jane and Rev in front of me. We were talking about cameras for quite some time while trekking. Photography is one of the things I like doing so it was an interesting topic for me. I slipped a few times, stupid mud, but fortunately, I didn’t go over an edge or slipped in the water. There were a lot of bugs around and what I think were bees. I stopped caring after awhile if there was a spider near me as long as I don’t see it. 

I’m happy with the shots I took with my good ol’ point-and-shoot camera. The lighting in the forest is amazing. 

Right after trekking was a good time to go to the waterfalls. It was part of the itinerary, but no! For some indefinite and unknown reason, we didn’t go to the falls. Lots of people were looking forward to it and they cut it out. I was so prepared for it that when I heard we weren’t going anymore, disappointment hit me like a bullet.

The bus going home felt pretty fast compared to how long it felt like going there. So overall it was good. The activities were good but something was missing. Maybe it was because of the waterfall issue or maybe it was because we had too much idle moments but the trip, for me, kind of lacked overall WOW factor.