An invitation to see the Benguet mummies

2 MIN READ

By ACE ALEGRE

KABAYAN, Benguet (Aug. 24) — A closer look, probably communing with the past, is an exhilarating experience because not so many were brought here yet to meet one-on-one with the world-acclaimed “Kabayan mummies”.

A two-day hiking tour to Kabayan will be happening on November this year to create more awareness for the protection of the town’s mummies and Mt. Pulag, the country’s second highest peak.

Called “Pasyal ni Kabayan,” the tour also promises to be both an uphill and downhill treat for nature-trippers and history-lovers who wish to limber up a bit while touring the town’s cultural and natural attractions.

“It is an invitation to commune with what the past had left us and to what nature has provided us,” Kabayan Mayor Faustino Aquisan beamed, referring to the town’s mysterious mummies found in their original mountain dwellings.

An important addition to the mystic of the mummies are the idyllic and equally mystifying lakes found in Mt. Pulag , including a “talking rock” found on the way to the mountaintop. The “talking rock” of Tawangan “talks back to people passing by”.

Aquisan said the two-day hike signals a slow but determined effort of local officials to promote local tourism as a means of improving the town’s economic standing.

The first day of the hike will bring participants to the “Tinongshol” burial caves in Kabayan barrio where they will partake of breakfast after a tour of the caves where hundreds of skeletal remains are aplenty followed by a five-kilometer uphill hike to the Timbac Cave where the famed mummies are found.

At the Timbac Cave, one can have a panoramic view of the Agno River, the headwaters of the 345-megawatt San Roque Dam and the vegetable terraces of Atok and Buguias towns, also in Benguet.

After a “tour into the past” at the cave is a trek to barangay Ballay where lunch will be served, followed by an uphill trek to barangay Tawangan to have dinner, thus capping the day’s tour.

For those who have not savored anything Kabayan yet, participants will also be served the native tea from the herb “gipah” and steaming locally brewed coffee. “We will also serve rice wine,” Aquisan said.

On the second day is the climb to the top of Mt. Pulag where a native feast is waiting. Along the way, several mountain lakes will treat climbers with a “never-before” experience of the mountains including lake Bulalacao, the cleanest body of water in the Cordillera mountains.

An add on also is a tour to the centuries-old rice terraces of Embossi in Barangay Pacso where glutinous rice varieties are produced.

“Interested? Contact me at 09195637043 or at 0916252036,” said Aquisan.

So, pack those backpacks right away and experience the Cordillera. #