By Joel B. Belinan
Our third attempt was sometime in mid-November 1993 and this time I personally oversaw the preparation of logistics. I also added three more Aeta friends to our original four guides and porters considering that we had five German friends with us. They were actually martial arts practitioners of the North Korean version of taekwondo and had joined the expedition as a part of their promotion examination. Their teacher was Mr. Patterok, the CEO then of the Clarkton Hotel and Resorts group, one of the living grandmasters of the International Taekwondo Budo Federation. Clarkton Hotel and Resorts group was our main sponsor in the endeavor to reach the Pinatubo crater by foot. Two of the Germans were black belters. As I recall, their names were Mr.Holger (the biggest of them all with a Stallone like body) and the other one was Mr. Aksa. One of their companions was a young lady martial artist.
Thus it was quite a big group of 15 composed of myself with my two buddies from the Ananda Marga Yoga, Bro. Dyanesh and Bro. Indra, the five Germans, and our seven Aeta friends. Our jump-off point this time was at the Sapang Bato, a village at the edge of the Clark Air Base, the nearest to the Pinatubo area. According to Bro. Indra we could not use this spot in our previous trips as it was still very risky that time. Based on the reports of the Philvolcs then it was still experiencing some explosions of pyroclastic materials.
We started at 2:00 AM and at 7:00 AM we were already in a dessert-like surroundings. At least ther were a few springs giving us nice cold drinking water. We interpreted this as a good sign for the trip.
The first day, like in any long trek, the group covered quite a distance, estimated at about 50 kilometers in 14 hours. We were fast even by mountaineering standards. There was no rain so we got enough rest. Good for our adjusting bodies.
We started the second day at 4:00 AM in a jolly mood. The Germans were very enthusiastic with their new experience while our Aeta friends kept on saying that with our fast pace, we would surely reach the Pinatubo Crater by mid-noon on the third day. Me and my Ananda Marga buddies had the feeling that we would succeed. It turned out to be a nightmare though in the afternoon when a very strong rain fell. The fragile lahar slowed us. The rain caused the whole mountains of lahar to move like a snow avalanche, cutting our predetermined path. We even found ourselves in the direct path of a lahar flow. Luckily, we survived. The only solution was for us to rappel down a 150 foot ravine to reach the safety of a rocky but elevated part of the mountain. Then came the usual problem with our Aeta friends. They refused to rappel. Unlike, however, on the first two trips, we could not find a detour for them.
While Bro. Indra was trying to convince our Aeta friends to rappel, Bro. Dyanesh and I started lowering the Germans who had mountain climbing know-how. By 5.30 PM the rain was so heavy that it was hard to even see a person three meters away. While all the Germans were already down in the safe area, the Aetas still refused to rappel. They said that Apo na Mallari (the god of Pinatubo area) might still be angry that’s why things were turning out bad. I called their leader Apong Jungle and his son in-law to have a talk away from the others.
I told Apong Jungle that the principle of rappelling was like using a parachute. I pointed out that it was just a matter of time before we who did not yet rappel down to the safe area below would be buried by the lahar.
With that the two leaders finally nodded in agreement. So they would try. Apong Jungle was the first in order to give confidence to the others. When he was able to get down very smoothly, he shouted to his group in their dialect and that gave them the go signal to do the same. In time, we were all able to get down to the bottom of the ravine and climbed to the safe area where the Germans had already pitched tents for our camp for the night.
After our dinner amid the still strong rain we had a short meeting with the leader of the Germans, Apong Jungle and my two buddies. We noted that never in the first two expeditions had we encountered such obstacles.
The next morning we woke-up to a bright sunrise even if most of us were soaked by the almost overnight continuous rain. We started quite late at 6:00 AM and by Lunch time we were in a place our Aeta friends said was the exact location of their village before the eruption on June 12, 1991.
The place was then a barren land of a lahar and boulders. Bro. Indra and Apong Jungle estimated that we were merely around 12 kilometers away from our objective. By late afternoon, after going up and down very steep boulders, we were just a kilometer away from the crater. We decided to bivouack in the area and decided to enter the crater early the next morning during sunrise. We seemed to have regained our confidence with the impending success of our trip. We were also lucky that there was no rain and the moon was bright during the night.
Early morning of the fourth day, I was informed that none of our Aeta friends will be coming with us to the crater. They believed that Apo na Mallari was still angry. They would only carry some of the equipment up to 300 meters away from the crater. We decided then that everybody would have to help in carrying the gears and materials, especially the ropes (1000 meters).
We reached the summit or the side of the crater at 6:00 AM. We were amazed at the sight of a very serene lake of 100 hectares, more or less. In the middle was a doom shaped little rock-island you could only see in the movies.
We set-up the ropes and put on our safety equipment (harness and gears). Mr. Holger volunteered from their group to be the first to go down after I lowered Bro. Indra to act as the rope man.
The trouble started when small rocks disturbed by the rope started to fall on Mr. Holger’s head as he refused to wear a safety helmet. His head was hit by a stone while he was right in the middle of the ravine of about 150 feet. He panicked when he saw blood oozing from his head and refused to relax his grip on the rope so he could go down. No amount of shouting from his German friends and me could calm him. I decided to rescue him using another rope I set aside for eventualities like this. Reaching his location I punched his shoulder which jolted him. I calmed him down by immediately bondaging his head. I also gave him a little water before shouting at Bro. Dyanesh and the Germans to give him instructions. After securing Mr. Holger with the rope, he was then pulled up. I followed him up to the summit leaving Bro. Indra still down to wait. After first aid was administered to Mr. Holger I asked the Germans if they still intended to go down. Only one of them raised his hand, the youngest of the group. When I asked Mr. Aksa what was the background of the young guy, I learned that he was from the German military. We then rappelled down together all the way to where Indra was waiting for us about 300 meters delow. We went to the lake and touched the water.
We took several photos with Bro. Indra’s camera and we posed for the telescopic lenses of the other Germans left at the summit. I told Bro. Indra and the German fellow to wait for me for just 15 minutes as I would do a short meditation. After that we climbed up to the summit where we had a photo-opportunity with all the Germans before going down to the base camp where our Aeta friends were waiting.
The good thing was that while we were at the crater for almost four hours, Apong Jungle sent a reconnaissance team to find a way to go down to san Marcelino, Zambales, the nearest place where we could get a ride.
When we reached the San Marcelino River, our Aeta friends were able to come up with an improvised raft making our travel six times faster. After almost four hours on the raft, we saw a village which I remember was the same one we passed during our second expedition. Again we were able to have a carabao cart ride for three hours before we reached a dirt road where we boarded a jeepney to Olongapo which we reached at around 11:30 midnight. In a few hours, we reached Angeles City by bus. It was 2:30 a.m., triumphant with our conquest of Mt. Pinatubo.
A few years later, the Department of Tourism, Region III, developed a route using Sapang Bato village also as a jump off point but not necessarily following the path we took.**
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