The bike-packing trip was about to pick up some speed. I never set out for this to be a mission about miles but up until this point, I hadn’t really clocked a great amount of distance. I’d been focused on the adventures in each spot and the bike as a means of transportation rather than the adventure itself.
Over the first two days of the week, I cycled 225km up and over the hills across Negros to reach Bacolod Port. 125km on the first day with 1300m of the incline was by far my biggest ever single day on a bike. I was tired but my body was managing, which was great. I managed to cycle 90km on the second day in just a few hours to reach Bacolod and jump on the last ferry over to the island of Panay.
I stayed for two nights in Ilo City to recover from the ride, do some laundry and publish three videos from the trip and get some work done. It was a nice little refresher before 160km of cycling over the next two days to reach the mountain town of Valderrama.
After running into numerous issues with the most chaotic permit process in the world. I set off to hike Mount Baloy. It is known as the toughest hike in the Philippines. While it was a physical challenge with rough terrain and 2,800m of incline over three days, it was the leeches and rain that made it hard. 500 leeches in one day to pick off your body will make anyone question their love for hiking. The rain was constant and we were wet for the entire three days. We persevered and had a good summit and overall a great experience on the mountain! Here’s my video of the hike below and some of my favorite photos from the week.
