Ironically, it takes friends from abroad for the old gang here at home to come together. This always happens when our California-based friend Cathy, who also used to write a lifestyle column here in CDN, returns to Cebu for vacation.
It becomes a reunion of former writers from the Sunday magazine of another paper, Sun.Star Weekend, when it used to be issued as a separate publication in both size and content (its literary inclinations, for instance, sets it apart from the broadsheet’s journalistic trivia).
These are always intimate celebrations with the usual beer (local beer it has to be, to quench the thirst of the balikbayan), nibbles, and karaoke, which cap the night of long, fun-filled conversations.
It’s hard to ignore these gatherings, for they are like a one-stop shop: you get to meet most of your old friends in one room. Those who fail to come will just have to look with envy at the photos where they are tagged and wonder from the frozen giggles what tsismis they missed (which could be about them).
These reunions are also usually followed by short trips away from the city. Cathy never misses to spend her vacation in the beaches and somehow she is able to convince some of our busiest friends to come with her.
This year, I finally got a chance to join the barkada for an outdoor adventure. This time, we went to Balamban to enjoy the mountain breeze and try the zipline, the town’s latest attraction.
It’s amazing how the mountain village of Gaas in Balamban town has changed since we last came here. In just a year or two, it saw the sprouting of adventure camps that provide opportunities for visitors from the city to enjoy nature and face their fears by going through “extreme” activities like caving, rappelling, wall climbing or ziplining.
The visitor can now pay for guided tours to a nearby cave, a waterfall or even the site in a mountain where President Ramon Magsaysay’s plane crashed in 1957, killing him and other passengers. We did not really gear up for a cave exploration or to dive from a waterfall, much less to hike through forests just to see a crash site (not a good idea if some of your friends are booked for an early flight the next day).
Besides, the fresh brew and equally refreshing view from the cliff-side café already got us hooked. We decided to just stay and try the zipline.
While some of us, those with a fear of heights, faced extreme peer pressure to submit to being strapped in a harness and made to wear a plastic helmet (which works to drill confidence into the head rather than actually protect it), our friend’s excited little daughters couldn’t wait.
It was not their first time to zip in Balamban. It was, in fact, with them in mind that their dad brought us there. So we had children who were veterans in extreme adventure to show the way. Faced with the prospect of humiliation, we had no choice but to let ourselves be hurled on a tightrope, imagining in that fleeting moment of being whisked above the trees, that we were fleeing from all the troubles and anxieties of lowland civilization.
We felt relieved and no sooner relaxed to coffee and—yes—karaoke. But the indefatigable kids spent the rest of the afternoon riding horses and ziplining some more. Watching the young “zippers,” we pondered on the toll the lack of play has taken in our adult lives.
No wonder shrinks banish their patients to some mountain resort to recover their sanity. There’s the zipline waiting in Balamban whenever you feel like your life is on a tightrope. It was a lesson in stress management.
But if you’re the type who can’t give up your fear of heights, one of the cafes allows you to order empty dishes to be thrown with rage at a “stress wall.” Luckily, none of us felt a need for that.