30.30.5: The Leech Saga

I hurt my foot while descending the summit but I had no time to dwell on the misery. To keep me sane, I just put on my battle self...meaning the edgy, maldita and moody me. Well, that's my definition of battle! We left the magical Nailig at around 12:30. We just entered the forest again when I realized that my glasses was missing. There was no way I'm going to leave without it so I told them I had to go back. Pong accompany me. There was a tricky cross to the campsite so Pong offered to get the glasses. I'm happy he found it...unfortunately, it was broken. I don't know who did but I'm convinced the boyfriend unknowingly broke it. :| I was pretty pissed with the broken glasses that I focused myself on the path. No pictures were taken until about an hour of walking.

Description from right to left. That's the view of the Sulfuric River - our target destination. The pissed me. Our first longer stop. The boyfriend posed for the camera..pretty pissed too.

After about 3 hours of walking from Lake Nailig, we reached Sulfuric River. The smell was awful but the view was magnificent. The guide told us we should never take long because we were super behind our schedule.

The Sulfuric River Photo Shoot. See my attire? I was told that after the sulfuric river, the leech saga will start. I'm pretty afraid of leech so I make an ULTRA effort not to expose any of my precious skin. :P

After 15 minutes of walking, we finally reach the half of the trail - the Rancho at 4:30 PM. The first thing I did was to check if I have "alimatok" on my clothes. I was pretty paranoid. Yay! I was leech-free! On our schedule, we were supposed to reach Rancho earlier for our lunch. While everyone settled thinking of a quick rest and lunch, the guide disrupt the peace by saying we might need to camp there. I was like..."ooooohhhh no!".

We still have an estimated 5 hours trail to conquer. It's already 4:30 PM. We didn't have our lunch yet. Given the preparation and lunch, the estimated time we could leave the Rancho is after an hour...add it to 5 hours, we were expected to reach the city at 10:30 PM. The guide discussed the perils of night trekking especially that not all of us have headlights. The group discussed and reached a consensus...we have to stay for another night. But we have a problem...we don't have any food left. How do we survive the dinner and the breakfast the next day?!

Because it's nearing dinner already, we decided that we won't eat lunch. Our lunch will be our dinner. Then for breakfast, fortunately some of us brought extras. Yay! When the decision was finalized, the guide told us to set up our camp immediately if we want to visit Twin Falls. Everyone was quite delighted upon hearing the revelation. Finally, we can have our bath for the day.

Twin Falls. To reach twin falls, we have to brave a 15-minute steep and slippery path. But after seeing the raw beauty of the falls all of our angst turned to glory. We didn't stay long though because we don't want the dark impaired our path on the way back.

My tent mates seemed to have a consensus to sleep early that night while others we're busy playing cards right beside our tent. The noise didn't affect our dreamland time at all.