Aliwagwag Falls

Untamed beauty

Originally uploaded by anetz.

All those years growing up in Cateel, all those holidays from university and work, this was a name that for me conjured unseen beauty and mystery.

It was said to be accessible only by motorboat if the occupants were willing to disembark to drag it over slippery boulders. This was to be done for a series of thirteen rapids. I don’t know if this was true.

We have a propensity to choose those magical numbers: siete, trece … seven, thirteen. Old carpenters and home builders used to recite oro, plata, mata to determine the number of steps in the main stairs leading to our salas. To make it end on  oro – gold. Always. For good luck.

There were no photographs. The lenses of cameras fogged up in the vicinity of the falls especially in the afternoon.

Then the bridge was built. Aliwagwag Falls became accessible.

The rainforest around it also became accessible to illegal loggers. One overloaded truck caused the bridge to collapse and that killed several people.

The load? Logs.

It is no longer too misty to take photographs, even in the late afternoon when a light drizzle falls.

When I took this photograph, a thought came unbidden: are there no longer enough trees in the surrounding rainforest? The fog did not obscure my camera lens. Or was that fine day just my buenas, my suerte? My good luck.

January 19

Banning by royal decree, of the Masonic Order in the Philippines: 1812. 

Third Sunday of the month which this year falls on the 20th is Holy Name Sunday, the fiesta of Tondo, Pandacan, Cebu City and other shrines of the Santo Niño. 

 

from Nick Joaquin’s Almanac for Manileños 

 

uluru terrain

 

uluru terrain

Originally uploaded by anetz.

In October of 1993, we went to Alice Springs. Among the many things we wanted to do was to visit Ayers Rock or Uluru. To visit Uluru was one of those things which as an Australian I believe I have to do at least once in my lifetime, like a pilgrimage.

It is one of those few entities which dwell in the mind after a single exposure, be it a photograph or a film clip or even in an advertisement. Such is its power.

I had had a reinforcing exposure too, from books written by Robyn Davidson*. This was the reason I would not climb the rock. Because she had written: I wondered how they could stand watching people blundering around in fertility caves, or climbing the white painted line up the side, and taking their endless photos. If it had me almost to the point of tears, how much more it must have meant to them. There was one miserably small fenced-off section on the western side which read, ‘Keep out. Aboriginal sacred site‘.

My first sight of the rock was almost unexpected although I had strained my eyes for it the whole travelling day, through dust, van breakdown and an unexpected transfer to passing tourist coach. The country we were passing through was already distinctly different from the land I was used to along the coast of the Illawarra. This was theAustralia I used to read about as an impressionable young girl, the outback with the red earth, the red centre of Australia.

Uluru suddenly just was there, rising out of the flat land. It kept growing bigger. I hadn’t imagined its actual size accurately. One can’t because all those photographs had to be taken from a good distance to include the whole mass of it. As we drew closer to it, the rock looked purplish and for me it had a brooding quality, like it was alive and would soon show signs of that life. In what manner I didn’t know but I wouldn’t have been unaccepting if suddenly it had lit up, stirred or even spoken or sung.

The awe I felt before it bordered on an actual uneasiness thatwas almost fear.This awe did not last that whole afternoon. As we neared the perimeter of where they had a fence and signs that this was where photographers should station themselves, we found many already there ahead of us to wait for sunset and the colour changes that this was supposed to have on the rock’s appearance. It was too noisy, people were singing and toasting each other, more bottles of champagne being uncorked there than at the Bundeena beach picnics on a fine Sunday noon.

Very early in the morning the following day, we were there again, before the sun rose. Again the sense of awe and uneasiness filled me, turning to wonder as the sun slowly woke the rock. As in the afternoon before, this was dissipated by the noise and number of people this time going up the rock.

I went away from there changed at least in one perceptible way. I never say Ayers Rock anymore. It has become Uluru for me. The rock is ancient, mysterious and Uluru, the name by which the ancient people of this land call it seems infinitely more fitting than the European’s name for it. 

* Robyn Davidson is an Australian writer. She wrote the internationally acclaimed Tracks which won the Thomas Cook Travel Book Award in 1980. It is the story of her 1,700 mile journey across the Australian desert and bush with four camels and a dog. She has written other books since but this remains my favourite.

Flying heart and butterflies

Flying heart and butterflies

Originally uploaded by anetz.

Sunday, the 6th of May 2007 found us in Berry. It was market day, first Sunday of the month and the town hummed with activity, cars, people, even a touristy horse-drawn carriage out on such a brilliant blue day. We had had a few cold snaps this late autumn but here was a summery day- Indian summer.

Parking spaces were at a premium but we managed to park our long unwashed car near its usual place, somewhere in the vicinity of the pet needs place (a very posh one) called Barking Mad. Pasky our maltese terrier may have something to do with this. Maybe subconsciously E thinks a pet should have input into parking decisions!

By the end of the day, I had taken nearly thirty photographs. The joys of a digital camera where one can snap, delete or keep, not even worry about printing, the results are just as great and even more “shareable” on Flickr. Berry is particularly suited for such explorations and excesses with a lens. It has rustic streets and cottages with gardens vying with each other for loveliness of both plants as well as whimsical garden décor,

I walked to the car satisfied with my day. E had taken Pasky for a walk and they were probably waiting for me, ever the straggler at any outing.

Just beside the big pub with the rowboats on the roof is a car park where all manner of vans and cars congregate and bake in the sun while their owners cool themselves with the pub’s offerings. That afternoon, there was a stunner tied to one of the cars parked there. Was it because it was Mothers’ Day Sunday? Was it because there were other cars like it there and the kids had to have a sign which car they were to head for?

Whatever.

Here is a photograph of what it was tied to that car. Against a sky like that, whose heart would not be lifted?

Here is a short slide show of Berry (the town where this photo was taken)

From Nick Joaquin’s Almanac for Manileños

May 7

Pedro Paterno forms a new cabinet under Aguinaldo: 1899