I woke up feeling lethargic. As usual, my mind was in a rather bad mood today. I wanted to sleep some more but couldn’t, I had to wake up.
We were in the popular spelunking destination in Sagada, Philippines and today we were going to trek through the Cave Connection going through the Samaguing Cave.
To be honest, I didn’t really want to go that morning but I already said yes. When I said yes the day before I was in a rather better mood and I didn’t want to miss out. Part of me felt it was going to be exciting, another, notably bigger part felt it was going to be very tiring. What I didn’t know was that it was going to be a test of will.
The entrance seemed harmless enough. There were stairs and rails inviting us in. Once you were inside though you would find that it’s far from friendly. Along the trail are very narrow crevices to go through, steep slippery rocks to climb on, and very deep cliffs where one wrong slip can very much literally kill you.
Now, as much as my brain wanted to wander around like usual, it had to focus. And as much as I wanted to turn back, I couldn’t. Going out the way we came in was going to be a much harder, near impossible climb. For us, literally the only way out was to move forward and finish what we started. It was kind of like an aphorism for life in a way, looking back at the past won’t move you towards the future.
Now as I mentioned, we had to go through some dangerous stuff. There was a part when we had to climb this really big rock and step on the thigh and arms of the guide to get over it and next to it was a very deep cliff. It actually felt like it was a do or die situation. There were also cold knee-deep waters. In a way, it can be a refreshing break, on the other hand though it was cold and there were scattered slippery rocks everywhere. Thankfully, the rocks mainly remained solid where they were when you stepped on them. This went on for three hours. We were doing good on time, we were going rather quickly as we were mostly running on adrenaline.
Soon enough, after a rather tough journey, to say the least, we reached the light at the end of the tunnel. It was definitely a breath of fresh air to see greenery.
At that point I can say that perhaps the journey was another metaphor on life.
That no matter how tough the journey is, as long as you keep moving forward through the ups and the downs, then eventually you will make it to your destination.
And you know what, as with spelunking, life is indeed hard. You will have to go through your own hardships, but as we did today, you just have to keep on keeping on.
