Pico de Loro

Lush, verdant and lusciously damp; Pico de Loro was exactly as I expected. It has been a while since I climbed a mountain wrapped in verdant tropical rainforest.

It is easy to get used to "well-pressed" National Park trails. It is easy to forget the sensation of being slapped crazy by foliage and thorny bamboo again and again in poorly maintained trails. It is easy to forget the sensation of losing one's balance and having no choice but to grab onto a thorny palm with your bare hands. Though Pico is not entirely like that, there will be portions during the assault that hints of this verdant past.



Pico is a regular destination for mountaineers and hikers of all ages. Any reasonably fit person will find the climb moderately exhausting even with a fully loaded day pack.



If you want a challenging ascent (so as to at least break a sweat) you can always shun the first turn-off that leads to the peak. Go past that and keep walking until you reach a small campsite. You should be able to see Pico's jutting rock overhead. Beat around the bush to find the trail leading up that rock. Taking this trail will have you scale 5 foot stone blocks and scrambling up roots and
branches.



Pico's rock that juts up the slope would have been a perfect platform to lie down and take in the view if not for the vandalism that the rock formation has suffered. It is just too basely and low for regular brains to comprehend the motivation behind vandalism in the wilderness.

In the Philippines, mountaineers seem to welcome if not encourage more regulations and restrictions in their favorite camping sites and hiking destinations. If only to add that extra barrier to protect these places from mindless vandals, most mountaineers are willing to put up with added layer in the bureaucracy of climbing.



Pico de Loro has two peaks that are quite close to each other. The higher and relatively gentler sloping one is where most would make their way to. The slightly lower vertical rock is more fun to go to and scale but obviously, it is the stuff acrophobic's nightmares are made of.

Many opt to pass climbing the rock once they have a glimpse of it. In actuality, you simply just have to stay close to the ground and everything will be fine and dandy. There is just this portion where you will need the aid of a rope to scale a near vertical portion. If you boulder or wall climb then you most probably wouldn't need the rope - which is by the way, weather-worn and tied to the base of a scrawny bonsai tree.

When I first went up that vertical portion, I knew there was something fishy about that rope that is why I refused to commit my weight to it. I doubt anyone would find the time to use a bolt for this. Trees can't grow on rocks so there couldn't be a trunk to anchor the rope on. . When I finally saw the scrawny bonsai where the rope was secured, I suddenly noticed the freaky drop to the side of the rock.



The view was fantastic on top of Pico's rock! We basked in the 360 degree scene where you can make out the outline of the beaches of Nasugbu and the highway that will take you there. Pico de Loro is actually in Cavite, though traversing the hiking grounds will lead you to the Province of Batangas.

At the end of the day, you have the choice of setting up camp or returning the way you came. For this trip we traversed and made our way to the Batangas side of the hiking grounds - more specifically, the Municipality of Nasugbu. The hike down took about two hours with minimal rest.

For the amount of effort put in to climb Pico, the reward in terms of the view is definitely runaway profit.



After hiking for hours, nothing beats loading up on a jeepney and hitting the beach.



Our itinerary took us to Cutad Beach - a sort of private white-sand cove huddled in privacy by forested hills. Beyond the beach and out of sight were ready roads and development work. We knew it will be mere months before this jewel of a place is forever closed to the public where only the rich and paranoid will be allowed to walk on its shores.



The wondrous feeling of having the cove to ourselves was exhilarating. We chased baby crabs up and down the beach in drunken stupor, gathering as many as we can, then sautéing them in garlic. The results were so crispy and fresh that you can bite through everything, claw and all.

Under the light of the full moon, we rolled, tumbled, wriggled, dug and jostled in the sand, and wadded, splashed and bubbled in the warm shallow waters whenever we could.



If "funnest" was a word, then that would aptly describe the entirety of this trip.

ITINERARY
Pico de Loro
Ternante, Cavite to Nasugbu, Batangas.
Total Budget: Php 600.00.

Saturday
08:00am ETD Baclaran
10:00am ETA Ternante. Catch Jeep to Magnet Road - Pico de Loro Jump-off
12:00pm Lunch at trail
02:00pm Assault Pico
02:30pm ETA Peak
03:30pm Start descending
05:00pm ETA Brgy. Papaya
05:30pm ETD for Cutad Beach
06:00pm ETA Cutad Beach

Sunday
05:30am Sunrise
10:30am Depart for Nasugbu (pre-arranged jeep pick-up)
12:00pm ETA Nasugbu
01:00pm ETD for Manila

PGMA Visits Navotas

PGMA visited Navotas today amidst curses from motorists having to contend with blocked main arterial roads leading to bustling dockyards and ports. They put up choke points in roads that are choked enough as it is, and added an extra knot in an already inextricable tangle of cars, trucks and pushcarts.



Who am I to complain, that is the way of the world - at least in these parts. And those who do not have jobs to go to, or cars so as to be seriously inconvenienced by all this hoopla are at the large parking grounds of San Jose church. They are lining up for scarce medical attention, piecemeal gestures from government like a chance to win a sari-sari store worth 6,000 pesos, a pedicab, or the chance to participate in workshops meant to impart skills for participants to start their own businesses at home.



The Office of the President markets this event as the Serbisyo Muna Program, a roving caravan composed of mobile teams from different agencies of government whose functions have much to do with poverty alleviation and the likes.

I'm inclined to see the whole activity as a public relation stunt rather than a means to "bring services closer to people". For one, isn't that the function of field offices of national agencies and local governments? PGMA has been constantly hounded by allegations of cheating in the last elections, and with the existence of a broad opposition mounting offensives against her on a broad front she needs all the "pam-pa-beauty" (read: PR points) she can muster.



What I am really interested in talking about is the performance of my shiny new Fujifilm Finepix S5600 (yeah I know, I didn't need to waste 4 paragraphs just to get to this. Tsk tsk tsk).



It would be the first time my camera would see bright sunlight and I was excited to see how well it coped. I was also "test driving" a 17mm Tokina prime lens on my EOS 10QD. More importantly though, I was "test driving" myself in the field - this would be my first time to do events.

What happened when the President arrived was lost in a whirl of confusion for me. I was nudged, stepped on, nearly kicked, and was drowned and basted in my own sweat. It was not the Presidential Security Group I had trouble with. It was the Pros with long white bazooka-like lenses and giant flash units that were my nemesis. The whole experience led me to think that having a camera in my hand is like having a large sign posted on my forehead saying: push me!

I soon understood how precious a good vantage point was for press photographers. Because I lost most of the time in the jostle, the only pictures of the president I was able to capture were shots of her forehead.

One of the reasons why I couldn't react as fast as I would have liked was because I was made inutile for a moment by all the mouth watering gear all around me. Yes, time was spent trying to identify the cool gears rather than looking for a vantage point to take a shot of the President.

I wasn't at the event to take photos. I had other tasks but when things were going along smoothly at my "department" I wasted no time sneaking off with my camera and pretend to be a "pro" for a minute or two. I even made sure to sling another camera on my neck to add to the effect. That last one proved more difficult than I thought. There were numerous instances when I was more busy untangling myself from the straps than the actual picture taking.

There was even a moment of incomprehension as I struggled to remove the lens cap off my 17mm lens when its release clips got stuck at the metal hood of the Tokina... oh yes, I did bump a few heads with the heavy metal body and sharp hood of the Tokina lens. Ouch!

In the end, I broke away from the entourage of photographers and found my way among the crowd. With the president out of the compound I could finally go about in a more relaxed pace.



In retrospect, I was too slow as an events photographer. I was somewhat poor in anticipating where the action would move to so as to get a good vantage point for that shot that can be sold.

I explored the compound and made my way inside the church. There, I went about doing what I like doing: photographing whatever catches my fancy and going about it the way I feel will bring the images to life. The task of doing this was made relatively easy by the S5600.



The task of composing however is made difficult because you will be relying on the electronic view finder or the LCD screen of the S5600. The EVF resolution is not enough to accurately tell if the camera is focusing on where you want it to focus or render minute details from the scene. Most of the time, looking at the pictures on your computer feels as if that was the first time you saw the scene - rather than a recollection of that shoot which is how it should be. You can take this as a good thing or a bad thing. Personally, I have mixed feelings about it because for one, I do enjoy being surprised by nice images that I didn't expect.

A lot of times, the ability to twist the barrel of the lens to zoom in or out and the ability to quickly fine tune your focus manually was sorely missed. With the S5600, your pace will be the camera's pace.

Though it is possible to manually focus, actually doing it made me conclude that it is too cumbersome and slow to be useful for anything photographic. Even if you were that patient to wait an eternity for the lens to finally come into focus after doing your finger-yoga to make it work, there is no way to tell if it actually has focused on where you want it to. Again, the EVF is not capable of rendering fine details to make this procedure useful.

The range of the zoom is excellent. 38-300mm was more than sufficient in most situations, though I would have greatly appreciated it if the range was pushed back in favor of a wider angle lens; 28-280mm would have been oh so sweet. There are many instances that the images in my mind while I explored the compound required a 28mm or even a 30mm wide angle lens to bring into being. Though I had a 17mm attached to my EOS, that however was way too wide to use on crowds or most scenes. It was ironic that though the 17mm Tokina brought in more people into the frame, the resulting image would have lost that crowded feel to it.



Picture quality wise, I love the brilliantly saturated colors when the camera is in chrome setting. At 5.1MP, I think I can live with the resolution without feeling too jealous of those 8MP to 12MP guns. I have this problem with purple fringing though and what looks like halation whenever there is a bright light source aimed somewhere behind the subject. Though I have had halation problems with 35mm cameras since I have this habit of shooting against the light, it is not as bad as with this digital camera. Luckily, there is Photoshop to fall back on.



Though I am not ecstatic about the overall control and performance of my new Finepix S5600, I am confident that I can take acceptable photos with it - photographs that I can proudly show to others and affix my name to it.