before summer ends

In Paris, the last few days of summer do not go gentle into that good, somber dusk of autumn. It rages on with aplomb. It’s as if the ageing, dying sun, in its last attempt to make itself felt before the gloom of autumn sets in, heaves in a deep breath and exhales in full force whatever air is left in its lungs. With the temperature wildly swinging from the mildness of 15 degrees to the dizziness of 32, there is still enough zest left among Parisians to take to the streets and celebrate the season.

These days, if I could help it, I choose not to ride the subterranean Metro. There is so much to see on the streets on summer nights. Whenever I go out from my part-time job near the attention-seeking, suppository-shaped Eiffel Tower, I would cross the Seine through the Pont d’Iena and walk all the way up the Esplanade du Trocadero, from whose vantage point one can have a perfect view of the Tour Eiffel in all its vulgar, phallic glory.

On this esplanade, you can see boisterous tourists, hawkers of Chinese-made metal replicas of the Eiffel Tower, and professionally trained pickpockets milling about amid never-ending camera flashes. Most tourists pose in the most grotesque manner just to make the illusion on picture that they are holding the tower’s tip. Or that they’re leaning on it. Or that the tower is impaling them through their butt. If I only had the time, I’d stay on this esplanade the whole day and watch tourists do their otherworldly poses.

Here, too, I get to see street performers every night. Since this wide, open space is vast enough for several groups to perform simultaneously without disturbing each other, you’re bound to see a group that suits your taste. Among the regular performers here are a group of American Indians in ponchos and fancy feather headdresses playing the recorder, the flute, and a rattling thingy to pre-recorded background music. Hanging on their mic stands are colorful dream catchers in various sizes. On good nights, they perform what seem to be stylized, New Age-inspired renditions of native American Indian music. But most nights, they simply play standard pop songs like Celine Dione’s My heart will go on, Andrea Boccelli’s Time to say goodbye, and even the Christmas standard When the child is born.

In one corner, a band plays Latin music to which couples passionately dance, to the delight of amused onlookers.

In the middle of the courtyard, a group of hiphop dancers commands the biggest crowd. They do their routine break dance coupled with acrobatics while goading the audience to participate by clapping or waving their hands. Then, they pass a small container around for some loose change. “If you liked our performance, please give us money; if you didn’t, then just give us money,” they would say.

Last night, I saw a guy pushing an upright piano on a specially made cart with four heavy-duty wheels. He stopped in front of the Palais du Chaillot at the edge of the esplanade and nonchalantly unloaded the instrument as if it was just an ordinary wooden cabinet. Then, he lifted it from the side and set it on the ground. There was no way that thing could be a piano! It took six robust men to carry my own piano when it was moved out of our old house in Manila. Or maybe they’ve already found a way to use lighter material for the frames instead of massive iron, making the mammoth instrument more portable. Anyway, I didn’t pause to know what exactly he would do with it because I was itching to go home.

But tonight, upon reaching the steps of the Palais de Chaillot, after having crossed the esplanade, I saw the same guy playing the instrument with bravura. It was, indeed, a real piano. He had removed the wooden panel of its lower half to expose the front soundboard, the strings and the pedal mechanism, thus making it sound louder. (I’m still wondering why it was so light.)

A group of onlookers had gathered around him, filming or simply watching him. I stopped and marveled at how skilled he was on the keyboard. Wearing a leather jacket and faded jeans, he pounded on the keys with such fiery passion. He was wearing silver nail polish which vaguely glinted as he fingered the arpeggios and hammered the octaves. I could tell that he was merely improvising because the piece didn’t seem to be progressing methodically. In fact, at one point, I thought he would go on and on. He seemed to have perfected the technique in playing several virtuosic passages and then just combined them to form a sonata-sounding piece. But then again, I may be wrong. It might really have been a composed piece which he memorized. Whatever it was, it sounded good. And the audience erupted into rapturous applause when he finally ended.

I had wanted to speak with him after that but there were already some people who beat me to it. So I just threw in some change into a basket on the piano top, took a hard, long look at the impossibly light piano again, and then continued walking onto the cobbled streets, into the cool night that bore the dying wheezing of summer and first few breaths of autumn.

train

After an exhilarating jog in the woods, I head to the train station to begin the anti-climactic trek back home. With endorphin-enhanced senses, I notice everything around me down to the minutest details.

On the platform, an overexcited (drunk?) guy sings to himself. He stands up and saunters toward the vendo machine and dances in front of it, his plaid boxers peeping from his low-rise jeans. A woman looks at him and frowns.

A few minutes after, the train arrives. I sit beside a girl who is curling her eyelashes. One sudden jerk of the train and she would end up accidently pulling out her lashes.

A couple is making out in the middle. The guy suddenly stops and playfully brushes the girl’s hair off her face. It gets in the way, he seems to say. The girl slaps him lightly on the cheek. More tongue action after that.

Girl beside me is now applying eyeshadow.

An old woman with gray hair and long, black skirt gives a speech in rapid French at the far end of the train. She’s too far for me to understand what she is saying. All I know is that she’s asking for some spare change. She quickly walks down the center aisle without pausing to see if anyone would actually give her anything.

An adolescent boy in a Justin Bieber hairdo comes in with his two friends. Since he is curly-haired, he only manages to look like Tina Turner.

The girl beside me finishes her makeover session with blush-on.

The train stops.

A teenage girl gets up and stands by the door. She lightly gyrates to the music on her iPod. Despite her bulging love handles, her hip movement is actually sexy. She’s the second dancing passenger I’ve seen in the span of ten minutes. It must be something in the air.

The train stops. The doors open. I get off, realizing that the commute back home is not really as anti-climactic as I’ve thought.

black bridal car

It all started with a black bridal car festooned with flowers and cheesy crepe paper.

“Lucky for them, they found each other,” the fortyish woman sitting beside me at the bus station suddenly blurted out as the black car sped past us. I gave her a polite smile and went back to reading my book.

“Oh yes, it’s good for them. Me, I’ve been alone for years now,” she continued. “And I’m telling you, it’s hard, it’s really hard. I decided to call it quits with my boyfriend years ago because he had been coming home late from bars. I couldn’t help but think that he was cheating on me. I mean, who would come home at six in the morning from a bar? Did he think that I didn’t know that he hooked up with some girl there?”

“Yes, perhaps he was cheating on you,” I curtly commented and started reading my book again.

“Exactly! And what if he brought home AIDS with him? That would have been terrible. So I decided to end it. The relationship wouldn’t have amounted to anything anyway.”

“Good choice,” I simply said as I uncomfortably leafed through the pages of my book.

“You’ll never know what you’re going to get these days. I’d rather be safe than sorry,” she said, more to herself than to me. She went on to ruminate about relationships at this time and age, and how people should always be on guard.

By this time, I had already closed my book; the woman had all my attention now. I noticed that she was not so much into conversation as into prolonged monologues. During the rare moments that her pale blue eyes met mine, she sought confirmation and affirmation, not active dialog.

She was wearing an oversized white shirt with some colorful print in front. He baggy pants seemed haphazardly chosen and worn in haste. She had with her an empty shopping bag.

“And you know what else he did?” she continued while we both boarded the bus that had just arrived. “One night, he went out with my mother and they came back home after midnight. And then, that same night, he slowly crept out of bed and went to my mother’s room and locked the door behind him. What was I supposed to think?”

“How old exactly is your mom at that time?”

“Sixty,” she quipped. “But love knows no age.”

I asked her if she had talked to her mom about it. She said the sexagenarian replied that she was merely trying to live her own life. I have to agree. Everyone has the right to be happy. But sleeping with your daughter’s boyfriend might be going overboard.

“That’s why I decided to end everything. It’s no use staying with a guy like that, even if he was a prince.”

“A prince?”

Apparently, the guy was the distant cousin of the ruling monarch of Monaco. This was getting stranger by the minute. It was more than I expected from a normal morning bus ride.

Fortunately, before the conversation took more unexpectedly surreal twists, she said she had to get off at the next bus station.

“It was really nice talking to you,” she said. She gave me her name and her mobile number, which I wrote at the end page of my book. “Maybe we can meet up again to chat.”

I gave her an ambiguous smile. The bus pulled over by the station. And I watched her walk away. I slowly opened my book again, hoping not to see another black bridal car.

eavesdropping

I am in the front seat, beside the driver of a passenger jeep. To my left sits the driver's friend holding fliers of luxury condominiums. He eats peanuts from a tiny paper bag while admiring his acne scars in the side view mirror.

“Pare, don't you know that peanut is food for the brain?” he bellows in Tagalog to the driver. Without looking at him, the driver replies, “But you don't have a brain!”

The jeep turns right and a famous beer factory comes in full view. Cases of beer are being loaded into huge trucks parked within its premises. Acne Scar guy, again, shouts to the driver:
“Pare, look at those trucks! They're brimming with beer! Anak ng puta (Son of a whore), I'd love to have just one of those!”
“Oh, you're such a bore when you're drunk. You're always catatonic,” the driver says, making his best impression of Acne Scar guy's catatonic state. “I'm better than you when I'm drunk. I'm always happy.” Me too, I think. I mean, come on, what the heck is alcohol for if not to bring happiness to humankind? The gods created it to palliate the sufferings of the people.

I need a drink right away, I say to myself. It is obvious that Acne Scar guy also needs one. When the jeep speeds past a chain of shanties, vulcanizing shops, beauty parlors, and gas stations, he looks around and faces the driver again.
“Pare, there are always drinking sprees on this street, no?”
“We'll have ours, too, when Oktoberfest arrives. We will go to Ever,” the driver says.
“But that's not where they celebrate Oktoberfest!”
“Oh yes, stupid! It's celebrated everywhere, as long as you have beer.”

We stop at an intersection. Further ahead, the road rises up into a wide fly-over. Three girls wearing shorts approach the driver and thrust the sampaguita (fragrant Philippine flower) garlands they are selling. One of them, the eldest, who must be around fourteen years old, is wearing eyeliner and eyeshadow. The two younger girls, who are unbelievably pretty, resemble each other; sisters, no doubt. The girl with make-up smiles and holds out her empty hand without saying anything. The driver hands her some coins, payment for the garlands he has taken the other day.

“Buy this one too,” she demands.
“I've got no more dough,” the driver replies.
“You don't have to pay today. You can pay tomorrow, same arrangement.”
“No,” he is stern. He notices the youngest of the girls, who coyly holds up her flowers to him. “This girl's beautiful. Come here, pretty little thing!”
The girl approaches and automatically hands him a garland. The driver takes it and pays for it.
“Oh but take mine, too,” the girl with make-up says.
“No, I can only buy one today,” with that, the driver steps on the gas and the vehicle speeds up. I notice that the two pretty girls are barefoot as they walk away.
“Pare, those girls' mom must be very gorgeous, no?” I am relieved that Acne Scar guy hints at a desire for the mother, not for the kids.

The jeep traverses the flyover. Traffic is getting heavier. Acne Scar guy suddenly croaks out a line from some cheesy song. His voice is hoarse but loud and clear.
“You have a good singing voice, so full and rich,” the driver comments.
“Oh yes, pare! Wait till you hear me belt out 'Skylight Pigeon,'” and he shouts the first few bars of the song, as if sarcasm were a compliment. A minuscule piece of chewed peanut darts out of his mouth and lands on my right arm. I discreetly wipe it on my pants so as not to embarrass the singer. He notices it anyway. And he is not embarrassed.

I get off under a steel overpass painted in searing pink. The jeep zooms away, billows of smoke trailing behind it. I head toward the sidewalk, ruminating over the romance of public transportation in this country.

crater

I only felt solemn awe when we finally reached the summit of Mount Pinatubo. The sun had already sunk but its last rays were still emanating an eerie glow from behind the mountains, extremely faint but sufficient enough. It gave the whole place a misty but ghastly appearance, like a lurid dream you wouldn’t want to wake up from. The lake that had been formed inside the crater during its last eruption was hemmed in by rock mountains all around, creating a deep, irregularly shaped basin of still, pinkish gray waters. After drinking in the scene while the cold mountain air lashed at my cheeks, I hurriedly put out my camera and whored in front of it with Noelle, Eric, Glenna, and Allan before darkness finally sucked in the whole scenery into its underbelly.

I wasn’t so keen on joining them in this trip because I had just had my dental implant screwed into my skull. I was afraid that I might get so tired walking it would bleed, or worse, come off. However, after consulting with my implant dentist, I finally said yes at the last minute, causing Glenna to conclude that, in any trip, I always say I wouldn’t go but I push through on the eleventh hour. I’m glad I did. I have never camped yards away from the crater of an active volcano before. This was the first time.

It felt like we were hobbits on our way to Mordor to cast the ring into its fiery bowels. Around us was a vast expanse of rock and sand. Dust rose in billowing volumes. The sides of the mountain range seemed like they had been cleanly sliced off by some enormous knife, revealing the powdery filling within. In between these mountain ranges, we trekked through a wide desert-like path that, only a few years ago, was raging with lahar from the summit. I wondered if lahar could really be so powerful as to have this singular effect on something as huge as a mountain. I kept imagining chocolate encrusted marshmallows that had been cut in half, only, in this case, the chocolate was green and the marshmallow light gray.

Boulders as big as houses were strewn all around. A stream, which widened into a sprightly river and narrowed into a trickling brook at some parts, flowed along with us. A natural guide toward the crater, I suppose. Just follow the bouncing, gushing waters and you’ll get to the top. At some parts of the stream, we could see greenish brown deposits that were remnants of its volcanic origin, no doubt. It was a constant reminder that we were on our way to a volcano, not just any other mountain.

The way was fairly flat. We only climbed when we were quite near the crater; the path was a narrow strip of water-soaked boulders flanked by lush foliage. As Noelle said, it was a hike with “no assaults” at all. Despite Eric’s advice not to drink water during the climb (I forgot why exactly), I still gulped from my metal flask. I couldn’t help it. It energized me. Water was to me what lembas was to hobbits. Sorry for the constant allusion to Tolkien’s epic but that’s what I was reading at that time. Yeah, I know, it’s too late to jump into the Hobbit trilogy bandwagon.

There were still Aeta communities somewhere in the mountains for we bumped into some of them on the way. They had surveyed us with either boredom or curiosity. Here go the stupid tourists again with their cameras, they must’ve thought. There was a cave from whose aperture peered a family of Aetas. I’m not sure if they actually lived there or were just taking a respite from the beatings of the horrid sun. Allan later said that our guide pointed to a human skull half-covered by sand and said that it was an Aeta who had perished in lahar. The Aetas are short, dark-skinned indigenous people with strong white teeth and huge Afros. They were mountain dwellers and hunters until Mount Pinatubo erupted in the nineties, unleashing tons of lahar that ravaged mountains, houses, cattle, and people. They were said to have evacuated to some site which was under the care of the government. But like everything that is government-run, this settlement didn’t have anything that could sustain them so they had no choice but to go back to the mountain and start anew atop the bones of their kinsmen.

We paid for a military escort in full battle gear, something that was compulsory for all trekkers. This was obviously just a money-making scheme, according to our guide who was a native of the place. The military saw something they could possibly milk for some cash that’s why they demanded that they become part of it. I couldn’t understand what the heck they attempted to protect us from, not unless skeletons of wild animals that had resurrected from their sandy graves regularly prowled this area. Anyway, this gives you a rough idea what type of government we have in this part of the world. When the escort started getting friendly with us, chatting us up beside our tent and accepting offers of refreshments, I got really uneasy. I don’t trust men in uniform. That’s something you’ll learn if you live long enough in this country. Noelle, an erstwhile activist who had battled against riot police in many anti-government rallies, later commented that the soldier and his armalite also made her uncomfortable.

But that didn’t spoil the fun of course. Eventually, the guy went off to a tent which his ilk pitched, leaving us in peace as we serenely listened to soothing guitar music from Noelle’s ipod plugged to a tiny speaker. Tone it down, Glenna said, we might disturb the tent beside us. We did and the music became even more enchanting, a soft undercurrent eddying in and out of our hushed conversation. The air was chilly and the stars burned vigorously. Other groups had already set up camp near us. The darkness was just broken by flashlights and battery powered lamps glowing from within the tents. Eric, as usual, was in charge of cooking our food. With a black, tie-dyed sarong (a large rectangular piece of cloth) draped around me, I silently enjoyed the place. I never said this to any of my companions at that time lest I sound like some new age mystic, but I really felt at peace with myself and with nature at that moment. And to think that we were on the edge of a crater that could erupt any minute.

The next morning dawned hesitatingly. Sunlight brushed against the mountain tops at first and slowly crept down to the lake. Despite that, the water didn’t shimmer. It still appeared misty to me like watercolor washes in an impressionist painting. We went down the lake to wash our feet. The water was still icy. There were tiny bubbles in some parts which suggested that there were creatures in its depths, or vents, or, damn, was it starting to boil? For something that’s boiling, this was pretty cold. The other campers soon went down by the bank too. One foreigner took his shirt off and plunged into the lake. I wanted to do that but the water was so damn cold. And besides, we had been warned not to stay in the water for more than twenty minutes, otherwise its sulfur content or whatever substance it has, will burn our skin. Although at that time, I sort of didn’t care anymore what the elements could do to my skin. The dust and the sand had already wreaked enough havoc on our pores as our sturdy four-wheeler braved the roughness of the terrain during the first half of our trip the day before. It’s free face powder, Glenna commented.

The truck crossed shallow rivers and trenches, and braved sharp rocks, leaving a trail of disturbed lahar deposits swirling in its wake. The ride was an adventure in itself. There were times when I felt that the vehicle would topple over and send us rolling on the sand. But it never did. The tires were huge and strong, the driver experienced and determined. For a time, the drive seemed endless. We could see nothing but grayness and some greenery up on the cliffs. After about two hours (believe me, it felt more than that) we finally stopped at the foot a moss covered boulder where we met our other companions, the other group that was set to conquer the volcano’s summit, too. They were pretty organized. They formed a circle for a short briefing, to which I listened, and followed it by a prayer, about which I didn’t give a hoot.

They were fairly slow because it was a large group and some of them couldn’t walk fast so we decided to overtake them and walk ahead, thereby making us the very first group to reach the summit that day. It was exhilarating to arrive there without seeing tents that could mar the view. All I felt was awe. Solemn awe. Standing face to face with an enormous opening into the depths of the earth is not something I get to do every day, much less admire something that has caused so much anguish, pain, death, and suffering to hundreds of people. As the horizon slowly dimmed, the crater took on a somber, misty appearance, showing its most ghastly face at the last dying rays of the sun.

luningning

While walking with my friends on a frosted street in Malakoff, Plateau-de-Vanves, on our way to the Metro station, I said something to the effect that, in a few weeks, we would all fly back to Manila and all this would be over like it never happened. Lu, who was walking nearest me, smiled and said something like “we will surely be back, right? This won't be our last time here.” I don't remember having said anything. I just buried my freezing hands, leather gloves and all, deeper into my pockets. Damn, it was cold and my breath was starting to smell like stale croissant.

That was two years ago.

Now, Lu is (as of this writing) on her way back to France to take her master's degree at Science Politique, an elite school (les Parisiens call it grande école) in the heart of Paris. That day in Malakoff is a hazy illusion now, more like a scene from some sleazy movie on pirated DVD. And her comment then was something one would promptly forget about, like a passing fart. I never thought she was serious when she said she'd go back. This woman is really determined. She knows how to dream and she will try to reach it, no matter what.

Don't get me wrong. You might get the idea that she's some sort of wily woman who's into wheeling and dealing just to get what she wants. Far from it. She's just determined and hard-working. Period. Just don't make her heat up something in the microwave oven or you'll risk burning your whole house. Now don't get me into talking about how she watched her lasagna burn in the microwave in her hotel room and how she patiently looked at the thing as wisps of smoke shot out of the machine, all the while thinking that it was part of the cooking process. She spent weeks trying to scrub the black stains off the plate, fearing that she might be charged extra by the hotel if they found out. And, weeks after the incident, I could still smell burnt lasagna in her room when I went there to use her bathroom (there was no freaking hot water in our damn room).

Somehow, I always ended up sitting beside her on the plane and even on the train on our way back to Paris from Lourdes (where we spent the whole afternoon drinking wine just right across the world-famous grotto of the Virgin Mary). Mind you, she said she didn't hear me snore at all! Either she thought my snoring was the drone of the plane's engine or she snored louder than I did. During these long flights, we got to talk about a lot of things—philosophy, Philippine politics, the arts, life, our dreams (or on my part, lack thereof), plans, common friends (it turns out she knows one of the most infamous people in my office before), practically all sorts of stuff. She always had something smart to say about anything, and if she didn't, she'd invent something, like “that must've been the street where the barricade in Les Misérables was set up” or “this must've been the exact spot where Marie Antoinette stayed to have her fake mole attached,” or some stuff like that.

One time, while waiting for the mass to start inside the gothic Notre Dame, we got to talk about agnosticism, atheism, and the highly political nature of the Church hierarchy. While the ancient pipe organ blared lugubriously impassioned baroque music up on the choir loft, we sat at the back, a few pews away from the rest of the gang, who were psyching themselves up for a French mass. “It's quite ironic that we are talking about these stuff inside a cathedral,” I said. I won't reveal the nitty-gritty of what we actually discussed. Suffice it to say that her take on the issue was something I found very interesting.

While walking on the cobbled streets of Île de la Cité or traversing the deadened floor of the expansive Conciergerie, we wondered why we, as a people, were not able to produce such grand monuments that are celebrated all over the world. Such huge, adobe structures are ill-suited for our climate and culture, I said. We did build some amazing things, like the Rice Terraces, for example. But that's not as celebrated as these stone temples, she reasoned out. She was right. Maybe being a colonial lapdog for so long has something to do with it? Even the valorization of such monuments can be politicized like presidential appointments.

After ogling over Napoléon Bonaparte's well-preserved horse at Les Invalides, the gang already seemed too ill-disposed to continue sightseeing. One even suggested that we just go back to our hotel because we needed to rest. It was drizzling and the rain felt like cold syringe needles cross-stitching through our clothes. Despite that, I felt like I still had the energy to walk around and explore. I didn't really care if I had to do it alone (on several occasions, I had wandered the streets of Paris alone, and in the dead of night, at that). I'd rather get lost in the labyrinthine Metro tunnels than spend my time counting my calluses inside a hotel room. Lu, fortunately, was also thinking of the same thing. So she told the group that she'd rather walk around with me and make the most of her stay in the City of Lights. Upon hearing this, the group decided to stay with us, much to the chagrin of those whose feet were already aching. And so we walked toward the Grand Palais and Petit Palais, which were, unfortunately, both closed for restoration. There, between the dark façades of these two massive palaces, we hung around and thus was born our own bastardized language: Frangalogish. It's a combination of French, English, and Tagalog.

“Mon Dieu, how cute naman your parapluie, Puis-je borrow naman ça, kasi il pleut na eh.”

“Yeah, bien sûr, bakit naman non? Pero demain, il faut return it to moi na parce que je le need eh, ok lang ba, hein?”

“You're so gentil, mon friend! Je te dois big time, grabe!”

“So, are nous going to go aller à l'hôtel na maintenant? My balls are like freezing already comme un ice candy in the sari-sari magasin eh.”

“Good idée! Alors, allons-y na, baka mag-close pa the sortie sa Malakoff eh, super loin pa naman the other station in Porte-de-Vanves, merde. I don't want to marcher sa street na super froid to the bone, baka may crotte pa ng mga freaking chiens. Merde talaga!”

On that note, language purists held up elegant urns to puke their guts into.

Lu had already seen the movie Before Sunset, which had been shot on location in Paris. Naturally, she was excited to visit the places where Ethan Hawke and Julie Delpy had their insightful verbal exchanges.
So one night, we, Lu, Dax, and I, went to Île-de-Saint-Louis, hoping to chance upon a familiar landmark from the movie. I had so much fun scouring the place that I forgot I was supposed to go to the Brogniart Palace to meet Elsa, the French girl I had met on my second day there. I don't remember what lame excuse I told her that night, but boy, she was really pissed! Good thing I had some presents for her. [Elsa, tu te souviens bien ce nuit? Je suis désolé j'ai manqué à te voir, c'était trop impolit et stupide. Merci pour m'avoir rencontré à Porte-de-Vanves malgré le temps. Ce qui m'a fait peur le plus c'était ton fureur! Héhé. Ne mets pas en colère à moi, s'il te plaît.]

I find Lu a great companion when we combed the galleries of the Louvre, Musée d'Orsay, Musée de l'Armée and all the other museums we visited there. She seemed to understand my tendency to drool over Gaugin, Van Gogh, Renoir, Monet, da Vinci, Raphael, Michelangelo, Rodin, et al. Perhaps because she, herself, drooled over them more than I did. It was such fun having her around because she shared my excitement over art and history.

Even in food, we seem to have the same line of thought. One time, the whole gang went to this crass French fastfood restaurant called Quick. Lu and I decided not to buy food there. We didn't go to Paris to sample stupid hamburgers and fries, for crying out loud! So the two of us went out and searched for a local boulangerie to buy freshly baked baguette to eat as the Parisians do. We both agreed we wouldn't spend our precious euros just for some American-inspired junk food. In Lourdes, only the two of us deliberately didn't bring any food. I only brought a bottle of wine. We told ourselves that we would just buy baguette there. Unfortunately, the place was like a ghost town every Sunday. Lu and I went around the whole town and found all the boulageries closed. Good thing the rest of them brought sandwiches and chocolates.

Two weeks ago, we had a send-off party for Lu at Red Box, Greenbelt. It was also for Tet, who is set to study in Perpignan, France this September. (This one's another remarkable woman. She was our very first French teacher who never made us feel that we were in the classroom. She made learning a foreign language fun and, believe it or not, exciting. Being younger than most of us, she was more like a friend during class.)

Last Saturday, we met again for dinner at Chili's, Greenbelt. We enjoy prolonged goodbyes like that. Afterwhich, we headed straight to Starbucks where we surreptitiously drank Jera's sake and a bottle Japanese peach wine, the latter was good; the former tasted like mouthwash. I told Lu she deserves whatever she has right now. She has dreamed fiercely and worked tirelessly for it. I'm sure she's destined for great things. You can see it in her eyes. She can be an ambassador or probably this country's representative to the UN. If not she can always take a job as a model in those idiotic videoke footages.

She's probably in Paris now, waiting for her class to start, perhaps still clutching a half-eaten French bread. As she used to say whenever we were looking at our Paris maps, “nous sommes ititch” [a bastardization of “nous sommes ici” which means “we are here”]. She's no longer 'ititch' (whatever the hell that word means). But who knows, we might actually find ourselves together again, talking about existentialism while munching baguette and drooling over some impressionist painting being sold on Parisian gutter.

ghost bands, seiko wallets, and bikini lines

Glenna woke me up in the middle of the night. The first thing that crossed my mind was an accident, a fire. There must be a fire. But then, I remembered I was inside a tent pitched on the peak of a mountain and it had been raining all night. How could we have fire? Groggy, I pushed myself up from the sleeping bag which was spread out inside the wet tent. Glenna was holding up the tent flaps to reveal the star-studded night sky. The rain had stopped. Insects were chirping monotonously. The fog was gone. It had hovered around us while we were passing around the huge bottle of Red Horse Beer under the canopy which our guide had set up.

“Look at the sky,” Glenna was saying. For a moment, I forgot the damned, protruding root on which I had been lying all night. “Wow,” I simply said. The stars weren't as bright as they appear when you're on the beach but they were numerous enough, and marvelous, too, something that is not visible in Manila's nebulous skies. Eric, who was sleeping beside me, got up, too. A moment later, the three of us were outside the tent, trying to find where the hell Orion's belt was. Glenna was wrapped in her apple green blanket (which had provided us warmth while we were sleeping) and I was swathed with my black sarong and jacket. We had set up camp a few meters from the cliff. From this vantage point, we could see the moonlit treetops with white fog clinging on them like purified mucus.

Looming against the slightly luminous horizon was another peak, Mount Nabio, a quarrying site of expensive pink marble called “Tea Rose.” Mang Carling, our guide, had told us that it is being exported to China because the Chinese, superstitious as they are, believe it brings good luck.

“We've been running short on water since quarrying started,” he claimed. “Our water supply mainly comes from that mountain.” Mang Carling shook his head and looked at Mount Nabio whose sides had been lopped off, exposing the prized marble. One person's luck is another's misfortune, indeed.

I had thought the rain wouldn't stop. It had started a few minutes before we reached the summit, which was already after sunset.Glenna took a respite just before we reached the top. “You guys can go ahead,” she said. There was a slight drizzle and it was dark all around. I don't exactly know how the hell she planned to catch up with us.

Earlier, she was so exhausted she almost threw away my small box of chocolate cookies, which, at that time, was the only thing she was carrying, after having given her load to Mang Carling. As for me, I was tempted to just chuck the huge bottle of Red Horse Beer I had in my right hand. All I wanted was a swig of cold water from my canteen. Beer was of no value to me then.

Upon reaching the peak, we cooked rice, instant noodles, and heated the canned sisig. Actually, it was Eric who did most of the cooking. I merely watched or pretended to be helping out. I would've probably ruined our dinner if I had actually lent him a hand.

It was the most sumptuous meal I've ever had. Our exhaustion and the mountain's eerie coldness made everything seem delicious. Food that I would not even dare touch in less spartan circumstances were like gourmet dishes up there, mouth-watering and ten times more satisfying. None of us thought of bringing plates so we were forced to eat from the small cauldron. This is perhaps how soldiers feel, Allan later commented. Cooped up under a canopy tied to tree branches, we were more like stragglers waiting for the war to end.

The rain pelted down harshly after dinner. The fog got so thick we could only see hazy images of what lay beyond it. In this sorry plight, we started cracking age-old jokes about horny nuns, Boy Bastos (Lecherous Joe), and human excretions. I've heard most of these jokes a thousand times before but it was fun laughing at them again, especially in this campsite where a slight gust of wind splashed rainwater on our faces and the mud, onto which our wet feet were firmly planted, sent tickly little insects up our legs. Puddles of water were accummulating all around us. And our tents were slowly being flooded. None of us, though, felt the need to panic or freak out. We just stayed there under the canopy, watching the swaying trees as if they were part of a huge video wall.

Because I had just recovered from the flu, I wasn't too keen on joining them. I had thought that it would be so cold I would have fever again. I soon found out that I would be way too exhausted to worry about getting sick. And, of course, the exhiliration that followed after having reached the summit was enough to scare away my viral infection. All throughout the chilly night, we could hear the rushing waters of the river down below. Snaking its way all around the mountain, this river feeds the residential areas dotting the foot of Mount Manalmon. Before we finally left Biak-na-Bato, we enjoyed swimming in this river despite its brownish green color. A bamboo raft that was tethered near the bank served as our resting place (for the river was quite deep). I tried swimming across the river a couple of times, careful not to be carried off downstream by the current. Glenna and Noelle mostly stayed on the raft. From the snatches of conversations I overheard, they were talking about the former's tattoo, her motorcycling days, and Brazilian bare, which reminded me to have my head shaved as soon as I got back to Manila. (Don't ask me what my shaved head has to do with their bikini lines.)

Mount Manalmon in historic Biak-na-Bato was the mountain hideout of Filipino revolutionaries who fought against Spanish forces in the nineteenth century. It was also the site of the peace treaty between the Spanish and the Filipinos on August 9, 1897. It was Eric who combed the net to find this mountain. He had excitedly showed me pics of this place in his computer and then proceeded to discuss how we would get there. It seemed like a thrilling adventure. At least, it was relatively safer than our original destination, Mount Pinatubo which, I heard, was a bit difficult to climb, especially in this weather.

Mount Manalmon was comparatively easy to climb. In fact, Eric said that seasoned mountaineers won't even categorize it a Level 1 trek. It was just a fun trek, plain and simple. Everest conquerors Leo Oracion and Erwin 'Pastor' Ermata scaled this mountain in a record time of thirty minutes. To my reckoning, our little group of six (including our guide) took around an hour and a half to reach the top.

The narrow tracks were fringed with lush bushes and thick bamboos. Don't touch the bamboo's hairy part, Mang Carling had warned, it can make your skin itch. But the warning came too late. I think Noelle and Glenna had already touched it. Some parts of the track sloped steeply up, which was not really a problem for me. What I found really scary was the descent.

Having a slight acrophobia, I dreaded the way down. My knees were like jelo quivering on a frying pan as I precariously inched my way on the muddy path, sometimes planting both hands on the mud to support my body. It didn't help to see that some parts of the track opened out to a cliff on one side. I would've probably come tumbling down to my death if I had so much as lost my footing. Eric noticed my snail pace so he walked right in front of me and instructed me to hold on to his backpack for support in case I felt I needed it.

Mang Carling suggested that we take another route going down. It was less steep but we needed to cross the river with a strong current and pass through a cave. That sounded exciting so we all agreed. Through a path made up of sharp boulders, we crawled down to the riverbank. We were told to hold our bags up our heads as the water was chest high. And the current can carry you off if you stray away from the designated path. Like soldiers on their way to some jungle combat, we braved the waters and crossed the river.

Looming high on the other side was a humungous rock formation crowned by the entrance of the cave. Like one of those dark medieval fortresses perched beside a precipice, it looked formidable and daunting. But the actual ascent was quite easy despite the razor-sharp rocks. It has undoubtedly been climbed a thousand times before by those who came before us. Noelle even saw some graffiti on the rocks dating back to 1939.

Upon reaching the entrance of the cave, a yawning aperture with moss covered stalactites, we lingered for a while to admire the magnificence of the place. Mang Carling was quick to announce that it had been the cave of some birdie character in a birdie fantasy soap on local TV. I believe the soap was entitled Mulawin (sorry, I'm not really into local pop culture, it's nausea-inducing for me). True enough, when we entered the cave, there were still some long bunting-like décor hung around the place. The bastards didn't even care to clean up after their shoot. Like a true tourist guide, Mang Carling pointed out the bullet marks on the cave walls. Those were from the last war, he said. I wondered how many died within those walls. I can only hope that the birdie soap's production crew were among them.

At the other opening of the cave was a wooden placard marking the spot where a rock formation that uncannily looked like some Catholic saint was found in the nineteenth century. The rock, it claimed, is now in Rome, probably a curious museum artifact from a (still) fiercely Catholic country, if not an object of pious devotion. The other entrance of the cave opened out to an extremely slippery flight of steps with wooden crosses at regular intervals. “Stations of the cross,” one of the guys said. They looked more like tomb markers to me. Aside from its historical value, the cave, apparently, also has spiritual significance.

Most Philippine mountains, for that matter, have some sort of supernatural story attached to it. Natives still consider mountains to be the lair of spirits, Christian or otherwise. Animistic and pagan beliefs have somehow survived despite the hegemony of Catholicism. In fact, these beliefs have made Christianity more colorful in this part of the world. With its schizophrenic mix of superstitions, voodoo magic, amulet powers, self flagellation, and devotion to the obscurest saints, Catholicism in the Philippines is a perfect case for socio-cultural studies. Due to their mysterious air that provides a perfect backdrop to supernatural phenomona, mountains have become sites of spiritual and religious activities. They even have legends that usually explain how they got their names. Mount Manalmon is not exempt from this. Seeing our interest, Mang Carling eagerly regaled us with the legend of Mount Manalmon.

It got its name from the Tagalog word lamon (to devour). Legend has it that a hunter, after having shot a white deer (or a goat, I don't really remember), was suddenly sucked in by solid rock. He got buried up to his knees. His relatives were told that he could only be saved by pouring a concoction of lime and betelnut juice around his knees. A local healer told them to prepare this concoction in very precise proportions. Due to lack of betelnut juice, however, the man's relatives diluted the liquid with water. And so, when they poured it around the poor man, the rock got mad and completely devoured him alive. Thus, the name.

That night, we witnessed a supposedly “supernatural” occurrence. While busy discussing the travails of Boy Bastos and his horny cohorts, we heard a faint, thumping music. It sounded like it was coming from some distant, tawdry bar where pot-bellied old farts are given to boisterous, terribly off-key karaoke singing and wanton drinking. The sound lingered for quite a while and we promptly forgot about it.

The next day, Mang Carling, asked us if we had heard the music the night before. We all replied to the affirmative. “We call it bandang gala (wandering band),” he explained. “Every night, we hear their music. Sometimes it comes from the west, sometimes from the east, sometimes from there,” he pointed to a distant forested area where no human settlements are known to exist. “If you had listened closely, you would have noticed that the music is old-fashioned, quite unlike what you hear on the radio today,” he added.

“It sounded more like disco music to me,” Glenna said. Whatever it was, I was not convinced that it was some sort of ghost Beatles having a gig up and down the rugged terrain. It was hard enough to climb this mountain with backpacks, let alone with a drum set.

The real music that night came from our tent. Eric, Glenna, and I were lying on our back, our feet wrapped in plastic bags to keep them dry. I was dreaming of apple juice with celery and cabbage while that blasted root on my back was giving me high-grade scoliosis. Out of the blue, Glenna started a heartful rendition of an extremely popular 80s ditty:

“YC bikini briefs
for the man who packs a wallop
YC packs action
YC packs fashion
YC packs beauty in motion
YC is for you!
YC bikini briefs
YC bikini briefs
YC bikini briefs”

Then, I requested that we sing something that was closer to my heart:

“Seiko, seiko wallet
Ang wallet na maswerte
Balat nito ay genuine
International pa ang mga design...”

After that, we launched into an unforgettable interpretation of “Si Filimon, si Filimon.” I had wanted to sing Yakult's jingle (“Yan ang diwa ng Yakult, syang tunay na diwa ng Yakult”) but none of them knew the words. Now that's something that could shame even the best bandang gala (wandering band) Mount Manalmon had to offer.

I don't remember having slept that night, thanks to that fucking root. But of course, Glenna and Eric thought otherwise. When I told Glenna that I felt I hadn't slept at all, all I got was a crisp “Bwaka nang ina mo!” (roughly translated, that's “Fuck you!”). My snore, apparently, could be heard as far as Mount Nabio, the other peak.

That night ended with us fantasizing about Ace Water Spa's water jets massaging our bare skin. I guess you already know where we all trooped to as soon as we got back to Manila.