Little drops of water, little grains of sand
Make the mighty ocean and the pleasant land
Thus the little minutes, humble though they be
Make the mighty ages of eternity
Every tour is a little bit different (well obviously since they’re all in different countries!). In the Philippines the roads are rough and the sun is intense, but the people are wonderful and our guide was cheerful and easy going. The tour started early – really early – we were on the pier loading the bus at 7am! Since it was so early getting breakfast into uniform to have breakfast in the Lido wasn’t something any of us relished the thought of, so instead we dressed in civvies and ate in the relative peace and quiet of the petty officers’ mess instead. Not as pretty or ‘classy’ I suppose, but free of the pushing and shoving (not to mention the noise!) of the floors up above.
Once the thankfully uneventful mini-bus ride out to the wharf was finished we found ourselves in a game of hurry up and wait. The boats that take us to the underground river that’s our final destination have a huge line up – mostly of our own passenger tours; and they have to come first. So we wait. In the meantime I buy myself a big floppy blue hat, which probably looks ridiculous on me but which I am abnormally pleased with because big floppy hats remind me of my mother.
Although I will say that wearing it makes me feel somewhat like I should be at a race track.
At least there’s a breeze coming off the water, a welcome change from the otherwise constant heat. In the harbour the outrigger boats bounce around like so many oversized corks. I get the feeling this is going to be a bumpy ride…
And so it was! I’d never been in an outrigger before. While the seas were relatively calm, the swells were huge and they were against us, so the boat would tip wildly to one side and the outriggers would skim across the surface of the water to keep us upright before tipping us back the other way. Since most of you know that the closer I am to the water the happier I am, it’s easy to imagine that – far from frightening me – the fifteen minute trip to the cove where the entrance to the river was energized me somewhat J After all, I’m the one who – as a thirteen year old – sat in the bow of a tin speedboat while it charged over the wake of a passing ferryboat.
My mother nearly killed me and the speedboat driver for that, but that’s beside the point.
Fifteen minutes after setting off from the main wharf we turned a corner into a bay that looked like it could have been the set for Jurassic Park. Embraced on one side by a huge greenery-spilling cliff and on the other by a jungle-spread beach, it was as if we’d stepped off into a description out of a classic adventure novel. There was no dock, so we hopped down off the boats into the water, which was only ankle deep, and waded to shore (some guests I’m sure would later complain about this, but we grinned about it) and stood about for a few minutes until our guide told us we could head up the beach to the lagoon that housed the entrance to the river.
The lagoon was like something out of a postcard. Perfectly green, with white sand and great trees dipping into it on all sides. There were huge monitor lizards swimming in the deeper water and truly adorable monkeys clambering in the trees. I couldn’t help but wonder what it must have been like to stumble onto this place when it was still undiscovered, still uncontaminated by humanity – it must have felt like stepping into the sacred. Despite the people hovering about the lagoon’s edge to board the next outrigger canoe into the river caves – it still does feel like a scared space.
But the lagoon is nothing compared to the river that feeds it. 8.4kilometres long, it runs under the mountain and mixes with the sea water, so the river itself is brackish water (a mixture of salt and fresh). The outrigger canoes make no sound except for the tiny splash of the paddle in the water as you slip into the mouth of the cave and into the cool, silent darkness. You can feel civilization slipping away behind you and ahead of you? Well you’re not quite sure. Each canoe is only fitted with one large head-light style lamp, which can be swung in all direction to highlight different formations and points of interest – wherever the light isn’t touching ,it’s perpetual twilight.
It’s hard to put words to something like this, even for someone like me who usual finds it easy to paint word pictures. Some things defy description, and you have to experience them for yourself to really understand them. The closest I can come is this: have you ever stood on an absolutely clear night, in a place where there is no wind and no light pollution, and looked up at the stars? That sense of infinity, that sense of overwhelming awe that makes you feel so small and so humbly unworthy? That’s what this was like.
Somewhat.
But not really.
But it’s close.
After what seemed only a short time, though in reality I couldn’t tell you how long it had been, our guide directed the light to be shone straight ahead.
Welcome to the Cathedral…
I swear the light was shining on an organ. Massive, literally hundreds of feet high, its pipes reaching up to the vaulted ceiling, towering over us in solemn silence. Naturally it was silent; it was made out of limestone. A completely natural formation, created with no tools other than water and air and time.
Swing that light over to the right please? There she is…just like in any other church.
And the light shone on the Virgin Mary. High above on a rocky verge, carved as surely by time and tide and erosion as though she had been carved by the hand of a sculptor.
There were dozens of others of course: the Nativity, the King’s Tower, a Hawaiian King, a Pegasus frozen in midflight, a truly astounding image of the face of Christ which made even me – who is normally able to look at such things with a purely art historian’s eye – gasp, and a nude woman with her back to the boats as though time had made her shy.
The forty-five minutes we were in the cave could have been three hours or could have been three minutes. There are times when everything just seems to be suspended – this was one of them.
When we emerged blinking back into the jungle sunlight none of us particularly wanted to go back to the day-to-day routine of reality, let alone go back to work. But part of the beauty of days like this is that they don’t happen all the time.
It makes you appreciate them more.