13-Dec-2005 -- This visit to a primary confluence point in the Philippines was done on a 10-day trip on northern Luzon Island. Depending on public transportation getting to small places was time consuming. From Manila we reached the town San Jose at the first day and spend the night there. The next day, we took a bus heading towards Santiago and asked the driver to let us off at a place marked in the map as “Anabat”. Our request stimulated a hot and long lasting discussion among all the people in the bus. It seemed that Anabat was either very small or not a place name.
Suddenly, the driver stopped and let us out in the middle of nowhere. There we stood at the roadside where a steep path was going up a mountain. I turned the GPS receiver on and observed a distance of 3.7 km to the confluence point. Laud to the bus driver, who hat really taken us to the best point to start a hike.
We hiked for 2 hours over two mountain ranges, mostly following some tracks or footpaths until we reached the confluence. Local people were very helpful to advice us the way or where to cross the streams. The approach for the last 200m was a little tricky, because we came from a side where we had to cross a steep valley. At 10:20 am, we reached the spot, located at a slope half way up a mountain.
On the way back we came through a village called Calo by the local people. This village is only 800m from the CP and has probably not more than 100 inhabitants. At 13:30pm we were back at the main road and caught a bus (and some Jeepneys) that took us to the town Banaue (18:30), where we stayed the night.
CP visit details:
- Time at CP: 10:20 p.m.
- Duration: 5.5 hours (until we were back to the main road)
- Distance to the next village: 800 km
- GPS height: 419 m
- Description: In hilly grasslands with scattered trees, 50 m from the bottom of a valley, 300m from rice terraces. A single tree marks the confluence
- Given Name: The What-is-Anabat Confluence
Story continues at 17N 121E.
Coordinator's Note: Picture of GPS as confluence on file.