Camping with Friends: A Weekend to Recharge the Soul

Hi there, fellow hivers! It's been a week since my last post, and it's felt like forever.

Life has been rough these past few weeks. I landed a good job, but I resigned immediately because of work pressure. Then I found another job, but it's way out of my line of work. The first week was tough, navigating through work and learning all the curves. I really want to make this work, but being in a corporate job for years has made me realize that this is not for me. But bills don't pay themselves, so I'll just suck it up for the meantime.

The first week drained my mental battery, so I thought going to the campsite with my camping buddies would be a great idea. But I had reservations about going, since I'm saving the money I have left to make it through payday. But I needed to recharge my soul to be able to survive another week at work, so I packed my bag and borrowed a tent from @iamcjestrada. I just couldn't miss another birthday camp with the SMS family! Haha

On Saturday, we planned to rendezvous at Flying V Pit-os in Cebu. Together with Ate Sherlyn and Chiarra, we made our way to the meeting place at around 2:30 PM. Cherry and John were already waiting there. John, who had been missing in action for 2 years, had decided to make a comeback.

We waited there for a while for the others to arrive. We bought some last-minute camping needs at the nearby stores. There were already a few motorcycle taxi drivers waiting there, which was quite annoying. They initially asked for a fare of 150 per head, even though the campsite is only 8 kilometers away.

When everyone arrived, we haggled for the fare and finally got them to lower it to 100 per head. We then boarded the motorcycles in pairs and made our way to the campsite, which took us about 15-20 minutes to reach.

We arrived at the entrance of Camp FoRRest in Sitio Kamansi, Brgy. Mabini, Cebu City at around 4:17 PM. We walked a few steps to get to the campsite.

We were surprised at how beautiful and Instagrammable the place was. But we were even more surprised to see a lot of campers there. All the good spots were already occupied, so we made our way to the lower part of the campsite near the forest.

We set up our tents and hammocks while the sun was still up.

Sunset came and the clouds were painted in orange, which made us stop preparing dinner and take a quick break to take pictures.

At dinner time, we prepared the never-absent lumpia, dynamite, chicken adobo (which Chiarra had already cooked at home), boiled pork bone soup, string beans with oyster sauce, and our favorite dessert, fruit salad. It was a feast!

We usually camped to celebrate our friends' birthdays, and this time it was James, Ate Sherlyn, An Jurvel, and Doctor Abel's birthday celebrations.

It was already 9PM when we started our socials. We gathered around and I started gunning the first round of drinks. Loud noises are not allowed at night, but good thing we were far from other campers. When we're all together, being loud can't really be avoided, but we tried to hush down when it was too much.

I went to bed past 1AM.

The morning came and I woke up around 6AM. We started preparing breakfast, but coffee first.

We made scrambled eggs, beef loaf, corned beef, dried fish, and some leftovers from dinner.

I took my camping chair out into the forest to have my breakfast there. It was the best breakfast ever. I wish it could be like this every day.

When everyone was done, some were already packing their stuff and tents, while @mariasalve and I were busy washing all the dirty dishes. Lol

When we were all set, we concluded our stay there with a group picture.

Our campsite was at the lower part of the hill, so we had to ascend to the top, which was quite tiring. Haha

We had originally planned to hike to Brgy. Guba where we could catch a modernized jeep, but with the sun already at its peak, we decided not to. Haha Good thing, there were motorcycle taxi drivers waiting outside the entrance.

This concludes my weekend, and I'm already feeling drained thinking that it's Monday again, back to work again. Hahahuhu

I think this will be our last camp together this year, but we're definitely still planning to do day hikes, hopefully. The holidays are coming up, and people usually go home to their provinces to spend Christmas. But we still have one last get-together this December, and I can't wait!

Life is hard, but it gets easier and lighter when you spend even just a little time with the right people around you. Until then, see you on my next adventures!