One of the reasons I love climbing is that it takes me
to places I otherwise would not go to. They are not Lonely Planet
recommended sights but often random rural spots that happen to have
climbable rock. One of them is Cantabaco in the Philippines. It is a
village – or actually rather a strip of road with population – in
the middle of the jungly Cebu Island.
Me and my climbing partner arrived in Cantabaco a week
before Christmas. We settled into this run-down “resort” called
Spring Park that had already seen its days of glory. It has four more
or less functional swimming pools (apparently instead of repairing
existing pools they had decided to just build new ones), a big hall
(that I used as my yoga centre) and bungalows of varying comfort
levels. On our first evening we showed up at the main building to
order dinner, just to find out it was not served that day. Since
there are no restaurants in the village we ended up buying street BBQ
sticks, fluffy sugary buns and bananas, that became our diet for the
next days. At 11pm we started hearing Christmas carols from the
neighboring church, and it became fully activated at 4am with
ringing bells and loud singing. We learned that the nightly church
parties would go on until Christmas Day.
Local kids eagerly showed us the way to the climbing
crag; across a bamboo bridge, through a farm home and up steep stairs
we went to reach a beautiful white limestone wall. Luckily it was
possible to climb there even in pouring rain. Even though rainy
season was supposed to end by mid-December, we got hit by rainfall
almost every day. Climbing the naturally polished rock in high
humidity definitely added difficulty to the routes, that offer
differing styles from powerful overhangs to more technical pockets
and cracks. In total there are around 50 routes there, optimally
suited for a mid-7s climber. Unfortunately the prime time at the main
wall is just a couple of hours before sunset, unless it is overcast
or one enjoys masocistic sweating in sunshine.
After spending Christmas at the beach we returned to
Cantabaco prepared: we had hired a motorbike to get to nearby towns
for fruit & veggie markets, night eating stalls and supermarkets.
We had also advised our later arriving friends to bring along camping
cookers. We used them to make our own morning porridge, until
eventually we befriended with the Spring Park staff well enough to
freely use the resort kitchen. Occasionally also the cook showed up
to prepare food for us, which we enjoyed in loud karaoke noise. (The
resort's karaoke machine is a top local entertainment, and most
singers compensate their lack of skill with volume.)
Despite being a small village, Cantabaco is anything but
quiet. Add to the church and karaoke singing almost daily happening
fiestas, screaming animals and tooting traffic. Also gunshots were
often heard while climbing. Bernard, whose wife owns the crag land,
is a retired army official and enthusiastic shooter, who even invited
us to join him one day. Anyhow the main Cantabaco entertainment is
cock fighting, that takes place every Tuesday and Saturday. One
afternoon we attended a fight in the stadium packed with excited
villagers. It was interesting to follow first rooster matching, then
bet setting (that seemed to cause most enthusiasm amongst the crowd)
and finally fighting itself. The actual fights were shorter and less
bloody than I had expected, and killed chickens get eaten afterwards,
so I was not that disgusted after all.
Even though I reached a big climbing high in Cantabaco –
sending my first 7b after persistent projecting – above all I will
remember the experience of staying in that authentic Filipino
village. I keep thanking climbing for giving me the excuse to visit
these fascinating random places around the world.
