By Joel B. Belinan
On the third day, I was informed that we barely had enough food left for Lunch and dinner. It was a surprise as we agreed that Indra prepare enough food for four days plus some extra for two more meals. But it was too late to do anything about it.
So despite the food problem, we carelessly started again early with our eyes fixed on the direction of the mountain that Indra and the Aetas were pointing to as Mt. Pinatubo. The topography drastically changed that we had to use ropes on few ravines, either to climb up or go down to as high or as deep as 150 feet. Thus our speed of covering 50 to 55 kms per day the past two days was reduced to just 20 to 25 kms.
By lunch time we assessed our situation considering that there was no more food and not much water left and the obstacles or ravines before us were as bad as those we negotiated that morning. We decided to abort the expedition.
As we turned back, I told myself that I will surely return more prepared to complete what we started. With our survival at risk due to absence of food, we were almost running like we were in a marathon even with all the gears on our backs. Late in the afternoon that day we found a small stream which at least solved our water problem. We followed this stream as it was flowing towards Florida Blanca. We set-up camp in the middle of a grass land. Our dinner was roasted wild green bananas. We broke camp earlier than usual at 2:00 and we started in an almost running pace towards the east. At 9:00 AM with no breakfast, we reached the upper Florida Blanca River where we took a bath after three days. This invigorated us that when we continued on our downhill trek, we were covering about 15kms per hour. By 3PM with no lunch and just water to keep us going, we were able to reach a road where we “hitch hiked” on a farmer’s kuliglig to the highway. We got there at almost 5:00 PM and reached Angeles City at about 8:00 PM on the fourth day of the expedition.
The 2nd expedition
Our next attempt to reach the Mt. Pinatubo crater was in the middle of August 1993. The composition of our group was basically the same, my AM (Ananda Margii) brothers Dyanesh and Indra and the four Aeta friends led by Apong Jungle. A German professional photojournalist accompanied us to make a documentary. Like our first attempt, we planned for a four day trip.
We started our first day at around 3:00 AM at the end of the road by the Porac Potrero River. It was like the first day on our first trip, with a very humid temperature. This time though, we didn’t have the luxury of being monitored from the sky by a military chopper. Our pace was quite fast as we covered almost 50 kilometers that day. The problem however was the strong rain in the afternoon as it was the middle of the rainy season. On the first night, our situation showed that we were physically and logistically more prepared than during our first attempt.
On the 2nd day we expected to be faster as our bodies had already adjusted but were slowed down by the constant request of the German photojournalist to pause for him to shoot just about anything that took his fancy. I assigned two of our Aeta friends to be always with him and that they should maintain a visible distance from us.
The difference this time with the lahar was that it got drenched and slowed us down. As the German photojournalist informed us, it was almost similar to snow. So we covered a shorter distance on that second day.
On the third day, we stumbled on very rugged terrain with vegetation. Aside from the high elevation hills we had to get through, the overnight rain caused very deep gullies. Our mountaineering ropes and gears came in handy. We had to rappel down ravines with our provisions. Another problem was that our Aeta friends refused to rappel, opting to look for other ways to go down which took them 2 to 3 hours more. At the end of the third day we seemed to be just a few kilometers away from our objective. I thought that we might reach the crater early morning on the 4th day, then proceed down to San Rafael, Zambales.
During dinner, I told the group what I had in mind. Our Aeta friends, however, suggested that two of them would try to go on a reconnaissance for the best path. The moon was bright that night and the rain stopped. I woke-up at 4:00 AM and called for a group meeting for the final day. Then we got the bad news from the two Aetas– we were on the wrong side of the approach to the crater.
Indeed, while Mt. Pinatubo looked very near our campsite, the gullies and lahar deposits that became like mountains in between us were almost impenetrable in one day. If we tried to look for another route it would have meant having to back-track for half-day, then climb for another half-day.
We had to decide then as our food was only good for 3 meals. Our Aeta friends might survive for another day by scrounging for food around but there was zero vegetation so we were all in danger of starving to death. So we decided to go down to San Marcelino, Zambales via the San Marcelino River as fast as we could. We were all disappointed especially the German. We covered almost 70 kilometer on a walk-run pace before reaching a narrow dirt road for carabaos where we got a carabao cart to ferry our gears to the nearest road. We reached Olongapo at 9:00 in the evening, and were back in Angeles City at 12.30 midnight. Another failed attempt. (Next week our third and successful trip to the crater of Pinatubo)**
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