Warrior Pilgrimage

Featured in www.pinoyapache.blogspot.com on November 1, 2008

OLANGO ISLAND HAD been humming in my consciousness for so many years. I have read and listened to so many tales about her and it gave me some misgivings why I haven't yet ventured beyond the back side of Mactan Island before the year 2008. That honor went to my “old” colleagues in Cebu Mountaineering Society or CeMS and they crossed the Olango Channel to and fro with such regularity as if the island itself sits on dry land.


My time to set foot on this mythical island of my mind came last May 3 and 4 when CeMS decided to organize and hold the Basic Mountaineering Course (BMC) refresher sandwiched with the Leave No Trace (LNT) Seven Principles at Bak-oy Beach in Barangay Tingo in a property owned by the family of CeMS member Joy Tongco. I was with 32 others for two days and one night there, some of them first-timers on the island...like me.

We crossed the channel in the morning from Punta Engaño Wharf, beside the renowned (and pink-washed) Hilton Hotel, on board a motorized outrigger seacraft which directly ferried us to Bak-oy beach. The waves were slightly rough owing to a squall generated by a passing tropical depression. Every newcomer were very excited and drooled on the idea of bird-watching on its southern tidal flats or of tasting their fresh bounties caught from its depths.


The latter seemed to be more feasible...READ MORE (Press CTRL + mouse click)