Early in the morning the group had to leave for an exciting trip to the mountains. Having lived for almost half of my life on the mountains, I was excited to see a different mountain aside from the ones I usually see at home. What was even more interesting was that we got to have a taste of the local culture… literally. You see, we actually got to have a local’s breakfast prepared by the wonderful Bagobo Tribe members of the Tibolo Village.

When we got there after our long and bumpy ‘Indiana Jones’ ride, we were greeted with pretty villagers dressed in their cultural outfits. Even better was the delicious breakfast all set in front of us in the cozy cottage we ate in. A local buffet all set for us, this trip was definitely the reason why I gained 8 kilos after December.

During our breakfast we also had the opportunity to observe ‘Ate’ pull out the chicken from the bamboo pressure cooker. They also had rice in the bamboo pressure cooker. I gotta get myself one of these bamboo pressure cooker. I’m sure they’re the in thing in my neighborhood.

The wonderful thing about the food cooking in the bamboo was that it sort of got the bamboo flavor into it so it had this really cool ‘naturey’ (for lack of a better word) feel into it. I can really say food cooked in the bamboo pressure cooker and served on a leaf plate is definitely a worthwhile experience. This isn’t my first time to do this but admittedly we don’t do it quite often back in our mountain.

The place was just abundant with local food and we had to help ourselves with the fresh glass of juice coupled with some roasted fish, fresh eggs, fresh adobong manok, fresh water, and all while breathing fresh air. It made me feel really… fresh!

And of course this trip wouldn’t be complete if we won’t have another round of camwhoring to the max. Below you can see one of my trip’s favorite subjects: Ate Brendel!

After our delicious breakfast everyone decided to take advantage of my camera all set on my tripod, so what the heck, we had photos taken like crazy! Pft, Filipinos, camwhores to the max.

I gotta say the whole experience was really wonderful. I couldn’t help but miss home when I got to see all the greens around me. I am a biologist after all. Then again even if you have all these beautiful natural wonders one can’t help but appreciate the friends you get to be with. Being with my DFAT 2011 classmates did make the whole trip worthwhile.

There’s still another post about a little impromptu pageant that happened during the trip, but that’s for another story already.