Just sitting in my hotel room in
Legaspi after a very satisfying day of hiking. The old legs are tired
but not aching. Lisa is coming to give us both massages in an hour
which is just what I need.
Last night we arranged for a local
mountaineer and registered guide called Bayron (pronounced Byron) to
come to our hotel and talk about the hiking options for Mt. Mayon.
We had talked to the owner of a Bicol Adventure tour company called
Martin earlier that day who arranged “easy” hikes where they
drive up to the 800m point and you hike from there from around 9am.
Piece of cake. I was ready to ask Bayron about this.
Bayron showed up an hour late which in
Philippines terms is more or less on time. He was a very nice guy
and we chatted about hikes and gear for a while and then discussed
options for the “assault on Mayon.” When we asked him about the
option of driving up to 800m, he laughed! He said we'd be missing
the nice jungle and lava fields if we did that and also “where's
the challenge?” Just our luck – we'd met a Filipino Justin.
(Justin is our good friend in Nagoya who is always up for a
challenge and recently climbed Mount Fuji FROM THE SEA!) Bayron
suggested we start from sea level at 5am and for some strange reason
we agree. What would Justin have done? What would Kazue have done?
At 4.30 this morning we met Bayron in
the lobby. He was with 2 other guys who ended up being our guides as
he had been contacted last minute from an office in Manila to guide
someone from Korea. Our lead guide was his big brother Eugene and a
moody 15 year old called Geno would be the assistant guide.
You aren't allowed to go all the way to
the top at the moment because the volcano is on Alert 2, so our plan
was to see how far we could get and turn around no later than 11am.
We climbed up for about 4 hours and then the rain really started to
come down hard. This made the already slippery rock dangerous to walk
without being on all fours. We turned around at this point and had a
leisurely climb down. All in all a very nice day of hiking.
If you have stumbled on my blog and you are looking for a guide to climb Mayon with, I recommend Bayron and his brother: bayron_mayon@yahoo.com (63) 0929-465-7529
