Weeks have gone since I’ve been on the mountains and I wanted so bad to forest-bathe. After a derailed trip one weekend to visit Mt. Makiling that turned out to just be a “traverse” of Angono to Cubao, my husband and I tried again on the Day of Valor.

There was a mighty roar but the path did not give. Tires kept spinning and engine kept revving but the “open” tricycle stayed in place. In this gravelly road, stones were now a-scatter, and a trio of grooves had been gouged.

It was an overcast kind of morning in the middle of March; the sky metallic and heavy. Kara and I were in the untold parts of Apayao, riding with two local women aboard this roofless trike. She rode with the driver, Kara did. The rest of us, along with our bags and a roll of linoleum, were in the side car.

For things illuminated, beauty is often a given. Light, after all, is necessary for sight. To be in the shadows and still be wondrous – now that’s rare. When my usual sleep-greedy self couldn’t wait to get out of bed, I knew I was somewhere special. 

I had suspicions of course. In daylight, when all were clear and bright, I watched how the tall grass gleamed with dew and sunfall, how they swayed mesmerizingly to the breaths of cool mountain air. Distant peaks lurked in the periphery. The land soared and dropped. Undulating. Rolling. 

After a day spent exploring (for the second time) Luna’s wonders, Kara (of Travel Up) and I rode to Pudtol to get to know Apayao more. Aboard a habal-habal, we sped past fields and patches of woods, punctuated here and there with the silvery branches and crimson blossoms of Bombax ceiba – my favorite native tree. I might’ve engaged my legs a little too much because there wasn’t enough footrest for two pairs of feet, but I was so enjoying the feeling of motion that I didn’t really notice how long it took us to get to RJ Domingo Fish Farm. All I remember was light has softened when we arrived. And there were also corn fields.