Lust For Lime: Annual Cantabaco Friendship Climb

This weekend is Lust for Lime weekend. Cantabaco, a quiet barangay in Toledo, will become the center of Philippine rock climbing. It will not be so quiet anymore as you will hear climbers shout in pain, embarrassment, frustration, and friendly derision. There is going to be no competition. Climbers will just gather to socialize and do whatever rational thing they want to do. Think of it as a friendship climb.

Before you pack your things up, let me just tell you that it is not very definite yet. Weather might be a factor for the guys to move the date. I am hoping that this weekend will be as sunny as the best summer day you ever had in your life.

But with the way storms are queued up for landfall in the Philippines, we cannot be very certain yet. Not to mention the earthquake that happened while I was drafting this. So please stay updated through @runroo’s Twitter account. Or at my twitter account @balmarsius. I tweet only twice a year so my tweets should easy to sort out.

Why you should go rock climbing

To stay relevant, I really should be asking why you should go there. But the question is fairly self-answering: because you would want to see elite climbers make things look so easy that you would think you can climb those unthinkable routes as soon as they get off there. Then again, I want to bring my readers (if there are any) to a much larger picture: the great things that rock climbing can do to your health and ego. So let’s answer the question.

Rock climbers have really great bodies (I am so tempted to put “we” at the beginning of this sentence). Climbing is a full-body sport that engages every ligament and muscle in your body. From the tip of your toes until the very last joints of your fingers, it is always all-systems-go. Instead of lifting dead weights here and doing leg squats later, why don’t you do everything all at once.

What if your weekend is booked…

…and you cannot go to Lust for Lime? That is totally okay. Those rocks have been there for thousands of years, you should be able to climb them in your lifetime. If you find the trip too lengthy for a first shot at climbing, you can always go to Vertigo Climbing Center at MetroSports. I mean not literally “always” because they open at 12noon and close at 9pm.

One of the guys there is rude but I guess only to me. You should do fine if you go there. In fact, I would really recommend doing indoor climbing first before going into the wilderness so you will have some fundamentals. As a sort-of-advanced mountain biker and a newbie climber, I often see how fundamentals are neglected. Lots of people I see have so much raw talent, strength, and heart but those are all not maximized because they did not start at the first step of the ladder. Now we know.

So if your weekend is booked, just go to Vertigo for some indoor stuff. Once your heart tells you you’re ready to go but you do not know who to contact, just type Cantabaco Climbing Friends on your Facebook search bar. Look for licensed belayer Enie Yoson.

What if your weekend is not booked?

First you would want to find out how to get to Cantabaco, Toledo City, Cebu. Take a bus at the South Bus Terminal. Buses bound for Toledo City, Balamban, or Aloguinsan are the ones to board. Second, pay your fare of 40 pesos and tell the conductor that you are going to Lutopan. It is the only major intersection on the right side of the road and you would

know by the sign and the number of habal-habal drivers there. From Lutopan, take a five-minute ride to Cantabaco and you can just ask the locals where the crag is.

V-hires at the City Link Terminal are also an option. If they pass through Manipis, they should take you straight to Cantabaco.

Again I’d like to emphasize that climbing is inherently dangerous. But with the right equipment and a guide, it is totally something worth experiencing.

    ____________________ Written by: Bal Marsius. He is not a drug lord but an aspiring porn star. You won’t discover the meaning of life by reading any of these posts. This is not even a travel blog. Everything here is an accident that happens when my head collides with the keyboard.