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Published: October 5th 2010
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Lake Maughan
Early in the morning of October 3, 2010 , everyone in the group is excited to see Lake Maughan. Sundae is busy distributing “pastel” , a cooked rice with fried beef chunks wrapped in banana leaves, to each of us. I bought 2 pieces for 5 pesos each. 😊
After 1 hour of waiting , the army truck arrived. There are 29 hikers and 3 army in the truck. We headed to municipality of Tboli. The truck leaved Koronadal City at around 7 am. To reach Lake Maughan, we need to pass a rough road for 30 minutes from the Tboli public market.
While on travel, we saw plantation of banana, pineapple and corn. We passed the 2 rivers and the first river has a bridge while the other one has no bridge. If there will be a heavy rain and water level in the river increases, the truck might not be able to pass the river. Luckily during our travel, it’s a sunny day.
The army truck stopped in a small village with less than 50 households where Lake Holon is accessible. Villagers and kids are watching us because they seldom see an army
truck visited their place. Villagers get their water in a flowing spring.
It’s time to descend in the truck to prepare for a long and arduous journey. The time is 8:30 AM and the sun is striking over my face but the cool air with about 20 degrees Celsius decreases the heat. The head of the team gives an instruction on the rules we need to follow such as no littering- take nothing and don’t leave anything, drink a small amount of water, walk in a normal pace and in every 30 minutes there will a 5 minutes break to rest.
We start walking uphill in a stony alley. There are trees with more than 100 meters tall that give a shade in the pathway. The neighboring mountains look vibrant and full of trees too. Flowers are growing in different places. It shows in the pathway that the Lake Maughan is always being visited by travelers. While on our way, it can be observed that heavy rains destroy the pathway and there are trees that fall in the trail.
The protected area of Lake Maughan composed of 4,600 hectares. The government will not allow hunting, cutting of
trees, selling of land and throwing of garbage within the protected place.
While we are walking, a man riding in a horse is approaching us. He slowdown the speed when he is near to us and introduce himself to be the designated watchman over the area. I was delighted when I saw the horse. Immediately, it came to my mind to take the chance to request for a ride in his horse.
The name of the watchman is Raul. He commented that our group is fast hikers. We carry light baggage and most of the men in the group had experienced hiking in some other areas. He agreed to give me a ride in his horse. While riding, I felt the pain in my hip. The portion in the back of the horse where I was seated don’t have a pillow and so the horse’ bones struck my buttock . Despite the feeling of not being comfortable, I prefer to take a ride than to walk.
We passed some of the members of the group and I offered a ride to another person since there is 1 hour left to reach the lake and I prefer now
to walk. Raul told us a lot of stories about Lake Maughan. In the past years, Lake Maughan is filled with water but the water spill out when miners intentionally put a bomb for a portion of the lake to explode which it resulted to a crack. Now, the water level in the Lake Maughan decreases when compared to ten years ago.
We made another stop in the cottage. Raul heard the sounds of the monkeys. He told us that creatures like monkeys, wild pig, and big snakes can be seen in the deep of the mountains. There are 3 men resting in the cottage and a 3 baskets of fishes where on the ground. They call those fishes as goldfish with a size of 2-3 inches in height. Near that cottage is a lake but we need to go downhill for another 20 minutes to reach it.
The path going down is cemented. At last, we already reached Lake Maughan. We arrived late and we saw other members’ resting and eating their food. The lake is surrounded with tall mountains that keep the water from spilling down. In another area of a lake there is a spring
that provides fresh cold water and in another portion of the lake is the hot water. Lake Maughan is part of Mount Parker, an active volcano. One can swim in the lake but using soap is not allowed and no one from among us attempted to take a bath.
Most of us enjoy resting, taking pictures and eating. We spent 1 hour in the place and its around 1 P.M. when we start climbing again. The rain in Lake Maughan always begin in the afternoon. When it rains, the path became slippery so we need to leave the place as early as we can. The clouds are getting dark. We saw seeds of Balkan tree, a cherry-like fruit. It’s red in color and its taste is sour. It’s easy to walk downhill back to the village. We left the place at around 2 P.M. and the small rain starts to drop. Everyone is tired when we arrived at Koronadal City nearly at about 5 P.M. To ease the tiredness , we eat batchoy, a noodle soup with egg and chicken before we go home.
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MELCHARD BING
non-member comment
wow what a wonderful place''''