Mountaineers are high | The Misfortunes of a 1st-time Climber

Guest writer Luis Azcona is a music producer, and songwriter/vocalist of the band, Maude.

Do not climb Batulao in slippers.

Do not climb Batulao immediately after attending a wedding unprepared.

Being not a mountaineer, I wouldn't describe how the place reminded me of how beautiful our country is. 

Assuming you're a been-there-done-that reader, I might just bore you with sight descriptions. I'd rather write short about what you've never "done-that", which I wouldn't suggest you to do.

Dane, My childhood friend, and band mate suddenly became obsessed with mountains - as if mountains were boobs. 

Seriously. I couldn't find him on weekends, I couldn't reach his phone. And when I do, he'd talk about mountains. As if mountains were boobs.

So I tried groping some rocks with him. After attending a wedding, he scheduled and planned it. I did not. Why would I? But somehow, the curiosity, and the fact that everyone was going except me, pushed me to Mt. Batulao.

Dane assured it was easy. It was. Until the duration of the walk, and those you-will-die-if-you-slip tracks f___cked with my mind and pained my body. 

Buko juice was nice at the first stop. Kamote was exotic on the second stop. Tired, I couldn't find anything nice on the next stops. 

Until our altitude revealed Mt. Batulao's peak. Surreal. I promise, it was way better than Google Image search!

That pumped me up. Specially when I realized that we had to use ropes to get there. That would be so action star.

At the peak, you wouldn't see the peak anymore. duh. What you would meet are people. People you wouldn't meet in Manila, people you wouldn't meet on the internet. 

So what kind of people? Extra nice people! Sharing food to strangers, smiling at each other as if that fog on our faces came from a bong. 

I saw someone ready to munch on a newly-heated adobo. I joked: "Pahingi naman!" Dane stopped me and said "wag kang ganyan, bibigyan ka talaga niyan"

It was easy to forget the grandness of the place. It was that small group of people that awed me. Like, "mountaineers are high." Food trippin', all smiles, and they just wanna share whatever they got.

There's something about the hardship of getting there that makes people nice. If the entire Philippines was like Mt Batulao's peak, we don't need a Manny Pacqiao fight to achieve zero crime.

Mountaineers are high.

And so we went down. Then my slippers snapped.