Both of us, in our younger days, came to Minalungao.
Me with my starry eyed artist/activist friends, lugging a case of San Miguel Beer, cooking rice in a bamboo tube, exploring one of the caves.
She with the family of a neighbor and perhaps a boyfriend.
I walked, and maybe she did too.
That was many years ago.
Today, a road connect Minalungao to the rest of the world.
A checkpoint collects P20 from each visitor.
And bamboo huts and concrete and humanity litter what was once a pristine and raw almost-paradise.
For us, Minalungao is somehow one of the dots that brought us into this single continuing journey.
It is a small pocket where a bit of a happy memory is stored.
But that aside, the Minalungao of today is misspelled tourism at its best.
And I say that a challenging mountain biking trail is its sole and only redemption.
Me with my starry eyed artist/activist friends, lugging a case of San Miguel Beer, cooking rice in a bamboo tube, exploring one of the caves.
She with the family of a neighbor and perhaps a boyfriend.
I walked, and maybe she did too.
That was many years ago.
Today, a road connect Minalungao to the rest of the world.
A checkpoint collects P20 from each visitor.
And bamboo huts and concrete and humanity litter what was once a pristine and raw almost-paradise.
For us, Minalungao is somehow one of the dots that brought us into this single continuing journey.
It is a small pocket where a bit of a happy memory is stored.
But that aside, the Minalungao of today is misspelled tourism at its best.
And I say that a challenging mountain biking trail is its sole and only redemption.
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