Location: Togonon, Cebu, Philippines

Sav: We awoke to the sound of an angle grinder cutting through rebar, roosters crowing, all the dogs fighting, and birds chirping. It was a lot of sound to take in. The open air of our mountain hut was warm and the beetles were buzzing around- although surprisingly and pleasantly nothing was biting!

We joined the crew on the patio of the house hut nearby, sitting at a live edge wooden table, on little wooden stools, where we were served fresh pressed black coffee and hard boiled eggs straight from the chickens around back. We visited and talked about the development of the crag here, and Al and Meg’s plans to expand it to be a climbers campground with lots of facilities. After six years of development they finally just got running water here last week so it seems like we showed up at just the right time!

After a quick gear check we were off, approaching the cliff via a little goat trail in the jungle that Meg and Al had cut down themselves. There’s a little chair at the top of a hill they call ‘the internet chair’ as it’s one of the only places you can get service out here. Mud was absolutely everywhere from the nights hard rainstorm, but the sun came out and dried off enough of the climbs for us to get a good day in – thank goodness!

Max: This place is a goldmine of amazing climbs. It’s the softest limestone I’ve ever layed hands on, which normally feels like a cheese grater on your skin. I would have cried at how nice the climbs are… but there were people around so I held it together. The routes are smooth, the difficulty is consistent all the way up, and the bolts (rings set in the wall that you clip your rope to) are well thought out. I cant believe there is this quality climbing this far out here and how much work Al and Meg have put into it. I think this is likely to become the best spot to climb in the Philippines when they’re done!

Savanna and I took turns belaying each other up the climbs. (She’s got moves!) We got a few good climbs in, but quickly felt our strength fade. Having left the Yukon in the middle of winter, we hadn’t had a chance to brush up on our outdoor climbing endurance and our forearms were really feeling it. It’s what we were expecting anyway, and it was a blast to finally be on a wall in the sun again regardless. I missed all the banter with friends that you get when you’re climbing with a group at a crag. It felt like no time had passed since the last time I saw them, and soon we were all cracking jokes and laughing like we were back in Greece.

Sav: First off I would just like to say that I have never climbed regularly enough to build any sort of endurance at all… so getting tired quickly was par for the course for me! I have no idea what difficulty the climbs are, and it all feels a little skewed since all the climbers here are amazing (generally only really good climbers would come this far out into the middle of absolutely nowhere to do this). I didn’t have the strength to finish off my climb, but Max assured me it was a great try. (I’ll have to take his word for it!)

We returned late in the afternoon, since Serena, Meg and Al are all on a diet that only lets them eat one large vegetarian meal per day, which they eat around 4 pm. We sat down for the freshest meal we’ve literally ever had- everything except the rice came from a 100 meter radius of us. Chicken and greens, stewed pumpkin, mixed vegetables, fried eggs, spring rolls and rice. There was even fresh coconut water tapped from the tree five minutes before dinner AND THEN for dessert there was fresh hot chocolate made with cacao beans from the trees growing along the porch. (Is this even real life?)

Incredible.

It got dark really quickly and everyone here goes to bed quite early, so Max and I packed in early as well, spending the last couple hours of the night visiting and blogging on the porch of our hut. I’m wrapped in a hand sewn blanket and I can hear the cicadas and crickets coming out – part of me can’t believe that this is happening at all. We’re about to sleep in a little open air bamboo mountain hut on stilts, with real cicadas chirping away in the Filipino jungle around us that aren’t from an ambient noise machine.

I’m not dreaming right?

Sav