Jungle Trekking to the Bat Cave

Trawling through the internet trying to find something worthwhile doing I barely noticed a link to a place called Bulabog National Park.  The instructions on how to get there said that it could be reached by hiring a tricycle from the city bus terminal, which led me to believe that it was located somewhere very close to the city centre as it would be impractical to go far on a tricycle, even if they meant the motorised ones and not the peddle type.  Hence, I thought that anything that close to the city couldn't be that good and so just overlooked it and passed the information to my driver for further investigation.

So when the weekend and the Sunday of the 10th Jan came around I asked my driver if he had any suggestions for something to do and he mentioned the Bulabog National Park.  As I had nothing else in mind and no suggestions of my own it was Hobson's Choice.

We headed off early on Sunday morning (it was early for a Sunday) at the suggestion of my driver and I didn't object as I knew I would be woken early by the dog chorus at sunrise and unable to sleep in.

I had so convinced myself that this was going to be a non-event that I didn't even think about charging the battery for my camera and I didn't take any food or water as I thought it was going to be a 5 minute wonder.  I even loaded my bike into the car as I was considering cycling back from the park to the house and doing a bit of sightseeing around the city.

Dingle

The drive to the park was actually around 30 miles and located near to a town called Dingle (pronounced Ding-lee) to the north of Iloilo, and the entrance to the park was located a short drive off the main road in the foot hills to the mountains.  On arrival I was greeted by a rather jolly local guy and as soon as I spoke he immediately asked me (in manner that was more of a statement than a question) if I was English.  When I confirmed that I was he straight away said in his best mockney Del Trotter accent "lubbly jubbly" and some other phrase, which despite me asking him to repeat several times I couldn't quite work out what he was actually trying to say.  He told me that he had worked the cruise ships around the Mediterranean as a steward and so had met many English tourists where he'd picked up his highly fluent slang.  Initially, I thought that he was the guide but it turned out he was resident of Dingle and was also there to visit the park with his nephews and niece.

Dingle Church

Entrance to the park was Php80 (£1.07) for me being a foreigner and Php8 (11p) for the locals.  A guide, which was compulsory, was a further Php180 (£2.42).  I did notice that I seemed to be the only one paying despite the Php8 fee each for Del Trotter and his family.  And they all congregated together and made use of my guide too!

As we set off we were accompanied by a motley mix of mongrel dogs, including one belonging to Del, that were hanging around listlessly at the park lodge when we arrived.  As soon as we started walking they seemed to come alive and were sniffing and scratching at the bush and running through the undergrowth.  I noticed one of the smaller dogs was walking rather oddly, with its front legs working just fine but its back legs were all over the place as if it was drunk, which was highly comical especially as it tried to make its way over the rough ground covered in snare like vines.  Del Trotter told me that the dog had never been the same ever since it had been run over by a motorbike.  However, I admired this plucky little pooch as it stayed with us the whole time despite the difficulties it was having in making its way over the difficult terrain.

The walk to the caves, which seemed to be the principle attraction, started off into the hills along the route of an old mining trail that looked as though it may have been a road at some stage, but which was now rugged and rough going due to erosion exposing the underlying craggy limestone.  I quickly realised that not charging the battery on my camera was a big mistake as we passed soaring forest trees with their massive buttress roots, wild coffee bushes, huge black millipedes, dangerous looking spiders hanging patiently in broad webs between bushes and the dappled light of the sun trying to pierce the forest canopy.

Spider

Forest Walk

After around 30 minutes of walking we arrived at the first cave.  The tour guide had brought the most pathetic pink toy torch that looked as though he'd pinched it from his baby sister to guide 7 of us around the caves.  The light seemed to fall out of the lamp rather than beam out with any sort of respectable brightness, so we ended up using the lights on our mobile phones to provide just about enough illumination to see where we were going. There were stalactites and stalagmites in shimmering and sparkling limestone, although those within reach had been worn smooth by the constant touch of hands.  We were in and out of the first cave relatively quickly and then went to another cave with more of the same stuff but outside of which there were three large crosses that were used for religious festivals.

Limestone Formation

The next cave we went to required a bit more climbing to get to as it was high up on a hillside, and on couple of occasions I had to give the mutt with the drunken legs a helping hand as it desperately tried to scrabble up the hillside using principally its front legs.  As we scaled the hill and came within 100 yards of the cave there was the most awful pungent smell, which I recognised as bat's droppings from a previous visit to a cave in Borneo.  At the entrance to the cave there were rocks with an incredible luminous green lichen on them.  Climbing deep into the cave and slipping and sliding on bat guano there was swirling mass of bats flying over and around our heads and flying so close you could feel the flutter of air from their wings.

Luminous Lichen

From this cave we set off again into the forest following a much narrower trail.  Parts of the route were swarming with ants so you couldn't stand still for a moment otherwise your legs and feet would be quickly covered in the blighters.  Interestingly enough, I was the only one who was wearing anything close to footwear that resembled walking boots whilst the others were all wearing flip-flops, but I was the only one who slipped over, smacking my Olympus 35 SP camera on a rock as I went down.  I wasn't bothered about the grazes on my leg and back, just the possible damage to my camera, but as it was made around 40 years ago it's solidly built (rather like its owner!) and seems to have suffered only a small dent in the base and back and has no serious lasting damage needing costly repairs.

What Does This Stalactite Look Like?

As we walked through the jungle we collected wild fruits, including one I'd never seen or tried before that the locals call Chico.  It's about the same size as a lychee but with a smooth brown skin it has a soft pulpy centre that tasted deliciously like honey.  Del Trotter grabbed a spiny jack fruit and as well as the Chico we found pomelo growing wild in abundance.

Chico Fruit

We then came to the final cave that was shaped like an arch and walked a fair way into it.  I was interested in seeing how far it went but we'd left a few stragglers behind and so we had to follow the guide with his pathetic toy torch back to the entrance to regroup.  The only dog that came into the cave was Del's and as we were walking back towards the entrance it was left behind in the darkness and started yelping and whining in an alarming manner as if it was being attacked by some sort of cave monster, which in the near darkness was pretty spooky.  At this point Del told us all to carry on and he'd go back for his dog using the even more pathetic light from his mobile phone.  This struck as being exactly like one of those horror films where the audience is thinking and willing the guy not to go back on his own.  But we just let him and whilst I was expecting him to reappear, staggering and covered in blood, holding his dog's head and telling us all to run for our lives, I'm pleased to say he wasn't hacked to bits by some crazy axe murderer in a hockey mask.

After regrouping at the entrance the guide told us that the cave was actually a through route and so we all headed back into the darkness, myself quietly confident that there was safety in numbers.

By 3:00pm we were back at the lodge at the park entrance and we sat down, soaked with sweat, dirty from bat's poo and with scratches and grazes from the sharp rock and thorns to feast on the fruits we had collected and to drink chilled mountain water. And once everyone had had their fill of fruit the Filipinos did what they do best - they fired up the karaoke machine and had a sing-song.

Jack Fruit

At which point we made our getaway and concluded what had been an extremely enjoyable day.