Face the sun and kiss the rain!

When the mountain ranger mischievously asked our group of climbers, “What’s the highest mountain in the Cordillera region?” we were not amused. We were sleepy and had just gone through a vertigo-inducing jeepney ride up to the ranger’s station. But we let the old man go on. “You don’t know? Mt. Ugu of course! Because it’s the only mountain to get hit by a plane!” Despite everything, we had to laugh. The joke was spot on. On June 26, 1987, a PAL plane carrying 50 people crashed 200 yards below the summit of Mt. Ugu. When rescuers went to investigate, they had to climb the mountain, thus discovering a new hiking destination. Ugu has even darker origins. Its name comes from the Ibaloi word ugoan, meaning, “to cut the neck.” Legend has it that the Spanish invaders were killed by the natives in this very manner on the mountain itself.

As we advanced deeper and deeper into the heart of the mountain, something about the trail made us do silent double-takes. Finally, one of us voiced it out, “Is it just me or do the tree branches look like erect penises?” The obvious could not be ignored. For some reason, the branches of the pine trees in that part of the mountain curved upwards, almost parallel to the trunk. Someone said it was the trees’ way of adapting to the harsh winds at that altitude. I thought it was just the mountain’s sense of humor. Pretty soon, we saw some of the lower branches had been carved into penises. According to our guides, they were the work of the locals, who used the trail to get to other nearby villages and couldn’t resist the opportunity to make the trail a little bit more interesting. Up ahead, we encountered a tree with a carved pair of very round breasts. Someone had even painstakingly carved nipples for complete effect. The trail’s big joke had its punchline: on a bit of flat land where we had a rest stop was a giant wooden penis made into a bench.

On the last day of the climb, we slept in the town hall just as a storm was breaking out. The next morning, we woke up to frenzied squealing. Just outside the window, a live pig was being gutted as an offering for clean town elections. A while after, as we were cooking breakfast, we noticed a little village girl playing and called her over. “What’s that toy in your hand?” we asked her. She opened her fist and revealed the pig’s bloody tail. That dampened our appetites quite a bit.

After breakfast, we boarded a jeep that would take us away from Ugu. I would miss the mountain, with its air of playfulness where humor is found alongside hardship and where people make the most of what they have. Ugu is a heady mix of dark past and light-hearted present, of the morbid and the comic, of the strange and strangely familiar.