It was Labor Day holiday, so for our 2nd project as a photo group, my 3 buddies: Lennie, Greg and Fritzie, decided to go somewhere nearer, somewhere more accessible. We decided to try Wawa Dam in Montalban. I asked for some assurance that this one didn’t entail any trekking. Images of me trudging up Taal’s dusty slopes kept painfully coming back up, like acid reflux. So we met up at Trinoma and we took one car to drive to Wawa. On our way there, we stumbled upon a construction site of some sort, with parked tractors and stuff. It was begging for a photo shoot. So no matter how ungainly the whole site was, complete with stripped hillsides and barren landscapes, we decided to shoot the worn down drama anyway.

Eventually, a manong got wary of us four, with our fancy cameras and colorful footwear, and asked us what we were doing. I hardly think we looked like journalists out to expose illegal mining activities or anything, but I guess stripped vistas are hardly sought after by photographers. So we placated manong camouflage shorts and told him we were just weekend warriors trying out our new gadgets. So off we continued shooting rocks and rusty metal…

Eventually, we tired of the whole tractor thing, and decided to move on to our real target: Wawa Dam. Plus, we were getting a little antsy because the skies were getting way too dark for comfort, and the foreboding heavens with matching looming heavy clouds moving fast in our direction were definitely a hint of what awaited us…

Finally, we got to our destination. It was a long trek up the mountainside, though much easier and less dustier than Taal. It wasn’t quite what we expected. There were so many people going up and down the slim rock paths going to and from the dam. Even the actual Wawa gorge was engorged with holiday frolickers. There were bamboo rafts complete with karaokes blaring Bon Jovi’s “Bed of Roses” at full blast. Bikers were also replete at the site, teetering ever so precariously on 2 wheels by the cliffs of the gorge.

I decided not to take pics on our way up, thinking that I’ll take pics on our way down. Smart (I had no idea what lay ahead). When we finally got to the dam, we had about 15 minutes to take pictures. It was quite a view.

Then what every photographer dreads happened: as we held our expensive camera gear, the rain fell. And I’m not talking trickle kind of drizzle, but a torrential downpour! There was no warning. Usually rain starts off as ambon, which gives you about 15-30 minutes to get shelter somewhere. But nooooooo, it just had to pour like someone upturned a celestial bucket over our heads. We ran as fast as we could to the nearest rock outcrop to shield us and our gear from the angry showers. We tried to wait as long as we could and tried to take pics in our little cubby holes, attempting to make the most out of a crappy situation.

(Thanks to Greg Galang for this pic!)

It looked like something out of “King Kong”

We tried to wait the rain out, but instead of weakening, the rain just kept getting stronger. We couldn’t see a single patch of blue in the far horizon, no promise at all of the rain stopping. Plus, we saw SWAT people with huge guns going up to the dam. Apparently some idiot fired a gun so the SWAT was there to respond. After a few minutes, we heard what sounded like gunfire, and with the rains pounding harder every minute, it was time to give it up and go home. It was scary actually, and when we came across the SWAT guys again later, I heard one of them say, “masyadong maraming madadamay…” . Yikes.

Now, the hard part. How to get back to the car with all our newly-bought babies that cost an arm and a leg for us four. I wrapped my cameras in Ziploc bags, put it in my camera bag, and the camera bag in a trash bag. Then, we had no choice but to walk back slowly down the mountainside in a full-scale downpour. We were drenched to our undies! Greg and Lennie were freaking out when Fritzie and I admitted that we’ve never bathed in the rain – EVER. Not even as kids.

We looked like mga basang sisiw:

Check out my cleavage!!!

(Again, thanks Greg!)

Lennie’s grandparents lived nearby and were so nice and gracious to take us in for a change of clothes and merienda to warm us up. I was shivering by the time we got there. Good thing I brought a complete change of clothes. I wouldn’t want to freak out my new friends by going commando. Lennie’s lola said despite all this, we were lucky. Apparently, there’s a belief that if you bathe in the first rain of May, it protects you from disease for the rest of the year! So I guess being May 1, that was the first rainshower of May. Woo-hoo, we were blessed by…Mother May?!?

After we dried off and changed clothes, we needed to reward ourselves, so we went back to Trinoma and had a sumptuous dinner at Cyma. I had a delicious serving of stuffed bell peppers. Here’s a picture Greg took of me with my dinner. The distortion is because of the Ultra Wide Angle lens, okay? I’m not a conehead in real life.

So I guess it wasn’t so bad. We took okay pictures, we had fun being together, plus I bathed in my first ever rainshower, which also happened to be the first May rainshower, thereby protecting us from getting sick for a whole year. Not bad, not bad at all…