Our guide asked us to pick one of the sticks stashed at the corner of the room. “This is for beginners…”, I convinced myself.

My sedentary lifestyle meant I’m in no condition to trails that require 4-foot sticks to trek. At that moment “stick equates to suffering” kept playing in my head.

Mud

It’s a fairly easy trail. The rain the day before made it challenging. Mud doesn’t make for easy footing. A slip can be fatal.

The first third of the trail is on sloping grounds. The latter two thirds is uphill. The steps cut into the ground were reduced to shallow indentations because of the rain.

It was slippery. I held on to my hiking stick like my life depended on it. It probably did.

Mosquitoes

Not sure if they were mosquitoes or biting gnats. There’s a huge swarm of them and only increased in number as we climbed higher.

It was a feeding frenzy as we reached the summit. To be completely honest, we weren’t able to enjoy the view from the top because of this. We only stayed there for less than 10 minutes.

Stream of Clouds

Discounting the mosquitoes, the view is nice. Undulating mountains. Green everywhere. Mountains as far as the eye can see.

I imagine that had we arrived earlier, we would’ve witnessed a sea of clouds instead of the thin wisps that snake between the mountains. It was still a beautiful sight.

Final Thoughts

We took a different path back down to Mount Purro Nature Reserve. The trail was easier. The steps more pronounced and less muddy.

I wondered why we didn’t take the safer path going up. A “complete” experience hardly justifies the safety of the guests. Two of whom decided to quit not even half way up, overcome by human nature to keep away from danger.

This also left us with just one guide, instead of the original three. Someone at the flank would’ve made us feel more secure.

If you have extra time, this is an activity worth doing. Just make sure to bring something to keep away the mosquitoes.