Anawangin-where??

that's the usual reaction whenever i mention that i want to go to Anawangin or we're going to anawangin or we've been to anawangin. and you may ask, where on earth is anawangin? :)

anawangin is the name of a place in san antonio, zambales. it is a cove behind the mountain and can be reached either on a three hour hike along the mountain (you need a guide for this) or thru a 30 minute bumpy (very bumpy) boat ride from brgy. pundaquit. the place is not known to regular tourists, but to the mountaineering community, it's quite popular as it has mountain/s to climb, a hiking/trekking trail and a very ideal campsite under the gently swinging pine trees along the beach.

here's a rundown of our anawangin weekend:

FRIDAY:

- email, email, email, confirmations, hesitations (it's raining!!), hesitations (where are the tents?), hesitations, email, and more email.

- text, text, text

- after office, it's a go!!!! yes!

- got two tents from jenny (first time to see and meet her, she's the sister of an officemate of a friend, she's a mountaineer btw)

- off to glorietta, have dinner with lyn (she wasn't able to join, they'll have a despedida party for a dear friend who's leaving for dubai sunday).

- went home, naipit sa traffic

- traffic pa rin

- finally reached my house at 11 pm

- cook adobo and last minute checking of things to bring

SATURDAY:

- woke up at 3 am

- by 3:30 am, i am already outside the subdivision waiting for a tricycle

- by 3:35 am, still there's no tricycle or any sign of a tricycle

- by 3:40 am, finally there's one and dig this: backride ako with a huge backpack, two tents in one hand while the other's holding for my life. (labas pa lang ng subdivision, adventure na!)

- didn't wait long for a bus and in 20 minutes, i am already in Baclaran (at daytime, 20 minutes in cavite can only mean four kilometers of slow paced bus travel)

- 10 minutes after, i am already in Victory Liner terminal in Pasay.

- Patrick is already there, and also Liza and Allen, then after 10 more minutes (and two oreos), there came Mau and hubby Mark, Julie, Neris and Yuyu

- got our tickets (P224.00 Pasay to San Antonio), and by 5:38 am, our Iba, Zambales-bound bus is now running (and picking up passengers along EDSA).

- Spiderman 3 is being shown (this is going to be the third time i'll see this film kaya tinulugan ko na lang)

- stopover at double happiness (they have an ultrasoft puto and a very tasty lugaw and dinuguan), but we just ate there our two dozens of krispy kreme doughnut hehe (there are a lot of military men in the area, i don't know why)

- sleep, spiderman 3, sleep, pass by subic, sleep, and by 11 am, the bus conductor asked us to get down as it's san antonio already. wow.

first stop is the public market. get our provisions for lunch, dinner, breakfast, lunch, meryenda and more meryenda. got our drinking water and other things. we let mark, julie and neris do the job while the rest of us are making friends with the tricycle drivers who'll bring us to Brgy. Pundaquit, the jump off point for anawangin (and also capones island and camara island). after 20 minutes of laughing and talking, our 20 minute tricycle ride to pundaquit begins.

in no time, we're already haggling for a cheaper boatride but no succes here hehehe, seems they have a standard price of P200 per head (two-way), or P800 per boat (max of 4 pax), we're also offered a bigger boat that can accomodate 15 persons, but the P2400 tag price is just too much. they do the haggling, while i do this these things:

that's capones and camara islands (we'll go there in the future)

the boat ride was approximately 30 minutes, and the ride's not for the faint hearted. there are big waves and there are bigger waves!! the view is very nice, similar to batangas' ruggedness and after a few turns and passing some rocky islets, anawangin is now waving to us.

but houston, we've got a problem.

we cannot dock on (wow barko? hehe) or even come near the cove as the waves are so strong (that morning, me MGA tumaob daw na bangka) so we let our boatmen decide for us because they're the expert on these things. after circling the area, they drop us on the other cove, literally one mountain of rocks from anawangin. and to get to anawangin, we have to climb that mountain and doing that is partly what we came here for. hehehe.

but since it's starting to rain, we have to secure our belongings and pitching our tent is the only option available. and so pitch it! we also cooked our lunch there and doing that in the middle of the rain is a challenge in itself but the boy scout/girl scout in us prevailed! our adventure that afternoon is a combination of Survivor and Lost (and a bit of the blair witch project hehe).

the rain and the wind made the waves bigger (pero ako itong pasaway, nagswimming pa rin hehe, ano nga muntik nang mawala yung goggles). we had fun eating our lunch under a make shift roof and when the rain had stopped, it's time to explore the place (including the initial climb towards anawangin). and guess who'll do the exploration, ME! of course, i won't do it alone, julie, liza and allen agreed to go with me, in fact, iniwanan nila ako. hahaha.

i run-walk to catch up with them but they're way ahead and already on the other side of the mountain, i climbed all by myself and midway to my climb, here's the view of where i came from:

and this is on top (left side)

still on top (front)

and this is where we are going (right side), see those waves? some says that after a storm, this area is very much ideal for surfing!

i am not sure if i sprinted or maybe they're just waiting for me, but i was able to catch them just before they can jump on that sandbar. we snooped around the area and found out there are a lot of campers here and there's a water pump and a cr specially made for overnight campers like us. this is definitely better than the other cove. we didn't waste time and climb again the mountain and tell the others that we need to transfer there.

NEXT: the transfer and the sunset: