the trek takes about two hours.
The nearest settlement to the Toro-toro is the hamlet of Sinaban, which is part of Monteverde village in Bagumbayan town. From the hamlet, my companions and I had to walk for an hour to the foot of the Toro-toro. It’s really difficult to identify where the foot of the Toro-toro is. It seems to be a huge hill on top of huge hills on top of a mountain range. I’m not also sure if I should call the Toro-toro a mere peak, a hill, or a mountain. For the purpose of giving you directions, let us consider the highest spot where there is a house and source of water as the foot of the Toro-toro.
My companions and I rested for a while at the house and filled our water containers. I knew by this time that the peak of the Toro-toro didn’t have any body of water, so the likelihood that it had a crater was nil.
We continued the trek. This time, the slopes were much steeper. The first slope we had to scale was a clearing that stretched for about two hundred fifty meters and inclined by at least 70 degrees. That alone sent me and my brother almost breathless. Remember that we had been walking for an hour before that, over a dozen hills. We could only look in awe at our companions ahead of us. Being locals and used to working in the farm, they seemed to have not broken a sweat. Their raucous conversation had not ebbed. They even ran and raced against one another every now and then, and once in a while, they would stray from the path to hunt for spiders and make the poor creatures fight in a tiny stick.
excuse really. At this point, I have to stop every after ten steps
to catch my breath and ease the pain in my legs.
The forested part of the Toro-toro was a little disappointing, to tell you the truth. There wasn’t much animal life in it. There seemed to be more birds in our yard at home at any given time than in my path to the peak. A bird or a pair chirped every so often, but other than that, the Toro-toro was quiet, which was disquieting. Not that I wished to bump into wild and possibly hungry animals, but I hoped to at least have some hint that the forest was still home to deer, wild boars, monkeys, pythons, hornbills, and many other species. Sadly, the only assurance I received was the information from my nephews that wild boars still roamed the northern foot of the peak and some of their neighbors had in fact gone there to hunt the animals.
Now don’t mistake me for an environmental activist. As someone who grew up in a poverty-stricken farming village, I believe that we should by all means exploit our natural resources to not only feed the hungry human beings but to give them the educational and economic opportunities that everybody deserves, but we should not do it to the extent that other species are driven to extinction.
By the time my brother and I reached the peak, our seven companions had built a fire and had been lounging on the grass and dead leaves for some twenty minutes. We joined them. We stayed at the peak for about half an hour, talking about mundane things. Check out the short video I made.
The peak of the Toro-toro isn’t much different from a low-lying rainforest. It was filled with trees, but while the trees at the foot of the Toro-toro grew as high as thirty meters, the trees at the top grew no higher than fifteen. The wind was cold, and I stayed most of the time near the fire, warming my palms against it. The fog was heavy. My jacket got damp after I left it on the ground for several minutes. Nothing could be seen beyond twenty meters. My nephews said you could see Kulaman Plateau or Allah Valley if you climbed a tree, but I didn’t bother to. I was too tired to climb a tree, and I went up the Toro-toro to see what’s in it, not to see what’s around it.
The interesting fauna at the Toro-toro included pitcher plant and rattan. I had thought that the pitcher plants there grew on the ground. I was surprised to see them high above the trees. I suspect that they used to be everywhere, but because their habitat had been disturbed by humans, only the ones above the trees had survived. As to rattan, it’s a common rainforest plant, of course, but what struck me was that they didn’t grow in a thick cluster like bamboo, so gathering them must be difficult and time-consuming. I understood better how much effort had been put into the rattan hammock and some furniture we have at home.
Because we headed to the Toro-toro after lunch, it was already dark by the time we got down to its foot. We spent the night in one of the very few houses there. We had a boodle fight for supper; we cooked in the house the rice we had brought, spread it on a banana leaf, poured the content of a couple of canned goods on the rice, and ate with our hands. I was tired and starving from the long walk and arduous climb, so the food for me tasted so much better than I suspect it really was. We slept on the wooden floor. Because we had not brought with us any mat, the owner of the house lent us his tarpaulin, which he spreads under the sun at daytime and to dry his corn and other produce on. The next morning, we all shared our observation that the foot of the Toro-toro wasn’t as cold as our respective home villages. It must really be the temperature in the place, or it must be because we had been packed on the floor like the proverbial sardines.
has a twist. Too bad, we missed the event by a few days.
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