"Orienteering is the sport of navigation with map and compass. The competitive athlete can experience the exhilaration of moving through the woods at top speed! If you love maps, exploring, and the great outdoors, try orienteering. You'll be hooked for life!"- US Orienteering Federation Website
Hooked for life. Hmmm . These thoughts resonated within me as I browsed through the link that buddy/restaurant magnate Bong Z sent me. Still in ITB recovery and saddled with a heavy workload, I have been embroiled in a new hobby search to serve as a temporary outlet. I'm willing to try practically anything. Even... orienteering. Whatever that is. So how did this picture come about, and why do I seem to have a certain level of angst towards this sign?
I not likey you CP2But hey, we're getting ahead of ourselves. It all started with this conversation... .
Bong Z : Yo GBM, wanna join our adventure race team? Me, Eo and Joyce are in already.
GBM: Adventure race? Like The Amazing Race? Woah!
Bong Z: Er, yeah! Only with map and compass!
GBM: But I don't know how to read no map and compass! I don't even know how to use GPS!
Bong Z: I'll take care of it! I read a couple of websites!
GBM: You READ a couple of websites?
Bong Z:Yeah! It's pretty simple really.
GBM: Uhmmmmmmoookay. What are we going to do exactly?
Bong Z: Dude, I have absolutely no idea. But it should be fun!
GBM: Er, okay. What time we leaving?
Bong Z: 4 am! :)
GBM: !!!!!!!!
Bong Z and GBM to follow in their footsteps?
And with that, ou r story unravels. Here's more or less what happened (save for some things , okay a lot of things that I completely made up) as told by members of the team itself.
Mcdonald's Buendia-EDSA. 4:00 am. GBM
Oh god it is so freaking early! How do I get myself into these things? I have like 2 hours of sleep! Bong Z just called, where am I? Where am I? It's 4 am! I should be in bed! Fair-sized Takbo. ph crowd here already. We all look like zombies. And, woah, is that our bus? Hey cool! It looks like we're going to do a Mexican border crossing! We're going to Tijuanaaaa!
Where's the Korean Tourist coaster when you need it?
Coastal Road, 5am. Eo.
Been training with these guys from time to time, nice to join them in a non-running setting. Nice to get those ITB thoughts out of the way for once. Glad mine's much better. GBM's ITB? Different story. Did you see him at Kenny? Dude was huffing pretty bad. Horrible. He eat my dust. Harhar. Hmmm. Just realized I'm the elder statesman of the group. Well, with my nice tan I hope they think Bong Z is my older brother. Well isn't this swell. It's raining cats and dogs. Is it still on?
I dont like dark, rainy places... .
Matagondon, Cavite Town Hall. 6 am. Bong Z.
Wohoo! Adventure here we come! I can't believe I talked that shmuck GBM into joining this! Even if he whines a lot, maybe I could put him to good use!Hahahaha.He thinks it's some adventure race! But the reality is ... the reality is... . Er, the reality is I have no idea what I'm getting ourselves into. I'll just try to remember everything I read in that website . and will try to get away with it by playing the cool leader dude part! Great! We're here on time! And... we're the only ones here. Where's everybody?
Belo? Who's that?Matagondon, Cavite Town Hall. 7 am. Joyce.
This is going to be a good day for me. Nice adventure race, good weather - what could possibly go wrong? Being the only girl in this group, it would be easy to underestimate me. Little do they know that being an Ayala Mountaineer since 2001, I may very well end up saving their hinds out there. But hey, being in the company of eye-pleasing, "mature" men, I'll gladly play the "clueless damsel" role to stoke their ego. Wohoo!
Clueless Damsel? More like 3 clueless guys!
Matagondon, Cavite Town Hall. 830 am. GBM.
Oh god this is so freaking boring. What's taking so long to start?We should have just come later . PoorTakbo.ph gang. Everyone has little to no sleep. I think we've zapped out our batteries taking so many pictures. People are sleeping on the floor, some may even be going insane. Some are... playing patintero?
Boredom does... .. things to people
Matagondon, Cavite Town Hall. 930 am. Bong Z .
People are getting awfully bored here. I have no sleep at all! Too excited. At least they're starting the orientation already. Sounds pretty interesting. Apparently, they delayed the race because the water levels were too dangerous for us to cross. See, they think of us! This guy is making it sound way too easy... . I'll just call him "Chief" because he seems to be the head honcho around these places. There's something about him... hmm..
Why do I get the feeling he'll be my favorite guy by the time this is over?
Maragondon Town Proper, 11:00. Eo.
After what seemed like an eternity we are finally off. We all agreed that we would sprint this first part while we are still in the city. GBM and Bong Z are off like madmen! I need to keep Joyce company, these dudes think we're doing a 10k or something.We need to find this place where Bonifacio was tried and get a map from there. How... historical.
Coolness.
Beloved leader Bong Z signing us off
2nd Hanging Bridge, 11:30, Going to CP1. Joyce
This is way beyond cool. After getting a bit lost, we're well on our way to Control Point 1. First of eleven we need to meet. We took the wrong hanging bridge first time around. This is the right one! Tremendous view! Eo is hanging on for dear life while we're taking pictures. Aww he's so cute!
I'll eat insects or balut but this is way too much for me!
2nd Hanging Bridge, 11:31, Going to CP1. Eo.
I HATE HEIGHTS. WHY ME LORD WHY ME?
Just one step... . one tiny step... .
CP1, 11:40. GBM.
Wohoo this is awesome! Locals are egging us on, kids playing with us, I feel like my Amazing Race dreams are being realized! And guess what? We're currently in 2nd place! Yeah! Don't count out these newbies!
Planning our next move.
I'll cut the recollection there because my pseudo narrators are getting tired, that's one of the last times that we actually smiled during the race , and I don't want to bore you with an epic entry.
So you'll have to make do with my quickie synthesis here .
CP1 to CP2.
This was the hardest part. A lot of teams were stumped looking for this "mythical" control point. We spent an unfathomable 4 HOURS looking for it. We had already given up at about lunch time. Bong was washing his face in the river and had kept his compass. Joyc and Eo were chilling. Then we ran into our aformentioned buddy, "Chief". He was dropping hints that we were "nearby" already, and that no team had found it yet. "Nearby" meant another 2 hours of seemingly endless dense foliage in a veritable Amazon rainforest. In a decision of sheer stupidity, I had worn shorts. This made me fair game to all sorts of creepy crawlies and thorny bushes. This made me very crabby. After what seemed like an eternity, we finally found it in a hidden place that no one in the right mind could have found off the bat.We were too dead tired to celebrate. In order to find CP2, we had to...
Pass through bamboo bridges ... .
Cross through streams...
Contend with creatures of the wild... .
Pass through insane uphill muddy trails... ..
Survive lush itchy foliage
All for this.
CP2 - Finish
This was pretty much elementary. CP3 was about a kilometer from CP2, and after that we decided to call it a day. We were with Chief by this time, and he urged us to go for at least CP4 because "malapit na lang". By my estimate, it took us more than 30 minutes to get there, and it was turning dark already. I was dead tired. A branch fell on my head, probably Mom Nature's revenge for whining about her kids the whole time. From that point, me and Bong sprinted to the finish line, relieved that the whole experience was behind us.
Night beckons... .
Epilogue
Coming back, the battle-weary Takbo.ph crew was smarting from the DNF. As runners, a DNF is like a source of shame that we would do anything to avoid. Of course, this wasn't our turf. But our competitive nature remains. Gab and Cindy's team actualy took 3rd , and Pat, Doc Eire and Bryan gutted it out till the end. The exhausting, punishing setting was ripe for drama and discord, and I am proud of my team for sticking through the whole thing. The trip home was a relaxing one, a nice opportunity to bond and share a laugh with my running friends in a non-running setting. And strangely enough, despite spraining an ankle, getting a branch fall on my head, insect bites and bruises galore, barehand-climbing a rocky hill, and falling into mud too many times to remember - if you told me that I'd be teammates with these folks once more ... .
I'd do it all over again :)
So, are you hooked for life? See you next year! Malapit na yun! :)