Adventure + Work

I don’t want to mix business and pleasure or work and pleasure. But I am so amazed with one place I visited in one of my inspection at work. The structure that I inspected is a Repeater Tower located on the foot of Mount Banahaw in Lucban. Most of us think that the Mount Banahaw is located in Dolores Quezon. But the other peak of the mountain is actually in Lucban. I know this because I’ve been there before during my college days when I joined a mountaineering club in my university. Anyway it’s been years and years and lots of years since my last climb on a mountain, so I’m excited to gear up as a mountaineer again but this time with a helmet.

First a brief description of what I am going to inspect. A radio repeater tower is a combination of a radio receiver and a radio transmitter that receives a weak or low-level signal and re-transmits it at a higher level or higher power, so that the signal can cover longer distances without degradation. Does it sound too technical? Anyway just think of an antenna or satellite dish with a building beside it. I was tasked to conduct an inspection of this facility (the building beside it, not antenna). As I said earlier it is located on top of the hill. I’m so excited and a little bit worry because I am not sure if I’m still fit for this climb. It’s just a hill but according my survey it is a steep climb.

And so we prepare to ascend the hill. Together with me are the linemen and some local residents. As we trek thru the dense woods, we passed a bamboo bridge. It’s just a bamboo, stock on each other with no nail to hold it together. It’s not that unique but I like the look of it so I took a shot of it. We don’t see this everyday in the city.

After some steep climb, I can feel my heart pumping fast and my legs are getting heavy. I can also feel the pulse in my neck because of exhaustion. We took a rest and while resting, one of the guides said that owner of coconut trees in from of us is his uncle. He took some coconut from the tree give us some. To my surprise the water of the coconut or buko is sweet and cold, it’s like it’s coming from refrigerator. I’ve tasted a lot of buko juice from Real, Infanta, Pagbilao, Batangas, Gumaca, Batangas, Laguna, Bicol etc., all are freshly picked and opened but never tasted like this. Maybe it’s the temperature of the place, a heavily dense tropical mountain, Banahaw.

Buko time!!! 

And finally we reached the place. The tower that you see is not my company's facility. We believe It’s a globe tower and behind it is a military camp. Our repeater is on the right side. 

This is the satellite dish beside the building of repeater tower

Upon reaching this peak, I'm again amazed by the beauty of my surroundings. It's a good thing that we have a good visibility even though it pour from time to time. From this place we can see the Town Proper of Tayabas and Lucban. 

at the back is Mount Banahaw de Lucban

After declaring my work as “mission accomplish,” we went home to our boarding house tired, sweaty, dirty and bruised from the sharp leaves and spikes from the bushes. But in the end of the day I’m happy. It’s not like every day we get a chance to do your job with a little action like this. J