A Full Day of Sites

August 18, 2012

We were up and out of here by 7:00am with a three stop field trip. First we went to Mt. Samat a WWII memorial site with museum and a hike ti the top where’s there’s a huge cross. 360 views are great looking out over Morong, Bataan on one side and on the other all the way to Manila and the South China Sea, we’re now calling the Philipina Sea.

From here we went to the Pawikan Conservation Center, a sea turtle center. The people who run it used to be illegal turtle egg poachers who have thankfully switched to the alternative livelihood of conservation and eco-tourism.

 

this is a green sea turtle being rehabilitated from an injury

After this we drove to Kanawan and took a 30 minute hike to an upland IP (indigenous people) village of the Itaw. They used to be a coastal people but have been forced out and up to higher ground. They are fighting for rights to their homelands and have been doing some reforestation work. When we got up higher in the mountains it was wonderful to see running water looking clean. The hike started at a clean cool rushing river.

 

I loved it and wanted to go for a swim really bad but there wasn’t time for swimming. We crossed a suspension bridge and got some great shots of two rivers merging with beautiful mountainside in the distance.

We sat as a group in this shelter that seemed to be the center meeting place. There was a poor little monkey tied to the beam and the kids loved showing off how they could torment it by shooting rubber bands at it. Kids will be kids.

the tormented monkey.

Carabeau

Our trusty guide Karesty worked with this tribe for two years. He's standing with the 73 year old chief, a very sweet gentle man.

Here's some pics of the cute kids and a couple of the homes.

 

So this was another patience testing submission taking a couple of hours, a storm rolled thru breaking my connection at one point. We leave Sunday for a week long trip to Batangas. Apparently we'll be housed in a nice place. Sunday night our permanent placement locations will be announced. Training will continue with a couple of field trips planned. One of them is a snorkle trip.