Few things I hated
about about Arayat:
There are beautiful clearings that hint us of our gradual elevation
but the climb had been very irritating with those electric posts and the sight
of dead logs the entire North Peak trail.
My dad is an Arayat native so as a child I had always known
that waterfalls and a very cold springs from the mountains supplies a lot of
nature spring resorts at the foot of the mountain. Now, there are NO water sources in Arayat.
Resorts dried up and even locals had no good and natural water supplies. It’s
infuriating how just one generation can ruin Arayat this much.
The only thing Arayat is famous now for are extortionists.
And they seem to have been making efforts to live up with the expectations.
Weeks before this climb I had been haggling jeepneys to be chartered to the
jump-off but I was offered P1500 to P3000 one way. It was only a day before the
climb where we managed to charter one for P1000.
We were swarmed by locals in the Arayat jump-off and were
offered a tryc ride to the town proper with 300% higher than their normal
rates. I may be speaking very novice Capampangan but I do understand them very
well and they seemed to have been treating us like money juices.
Few Things I liked
about our Arayat Traverse
The clearings were breath taking.
The weather’s A OK. The sun had been very gentle though the
clouds may seem to be very minimal. On top of that is the Amihan breeze that’s
just a treat for everyone.
More than 20 people in a climb may be a little too crowded
for my taste but I loved our crowd.
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Photo courtesy of Ron
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Few Things about
our itinerary
3AM
Our bus from Cubao left for Dau, Mabalacat at around 3.30AM
giving us ample time to have breakfast in Pampanga arriving there an hour later. Dagupan Bus Co.
has Dagupan bound buses every thirty minutes starting at 12MN.
5.30AM
We hopped in our chartered jeepney to Magalang. Although, it
took us a while to be there since the driver thought we were going to Arayat,
the town. I was really frustrated then
since I assured him if we knew where we were headed. Now you see, if you are
doing the normal Arayat-Arayat climb (South Peak), RJ buses in Caloocan has
direct routes to Arayat and Cabiao, Nueva Ecija. If you are commuting to Magalang,
Mabalacat (one short jeepney ride from Dau) has earlier jeepneys than in SM
Pampanga or Marquee Mall.
7.30AM
Deciphering registration procedures also robbed us some time
so we started our trek a little before 8AM.
11AM
We had our lunch at the North Peak arriving there with an
impressive time finish.
1PM
Now crossing the ridge from North Peak to the South Peak, should
just take 1.5hrs but crunched us more time since we lost trail signs and ended
up descending in the middle of the ridge. We managed to be back in the trail
after an hour.
3PM
We left North peak campsite and started descend.
7PM
Some of the team were overwhelmed with the strenuous trail
that dragged us into longer hours descending. But the Arayat trail, should be
just very easy to negotiate. We’ll probably revenge this trail some other time
hoping for a way better finish.
Few things about
our budget:
ü
Cubao to Dau bus – P140
ü
Dau to Magalang chartered jeepney – P1000
ü
San Juan Bano tricycle to Arayat Proper – P50
(normal special trips should just be P50 and P15 is the normal fare per person)
ü
Arayat to SM SnFdo jeepney- P30 (Should you have
a better finish, there are buses from Nueva Ecija in here directly to Manila.
Last trip to Manila is 6PM, jeepneys to Angeles City is 5PM and SM SnFdo at 9PM)
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