An Unexpected Geological Anomaly
πTabaco Cave, Luga, Sta. Teresita, Cagayan
In Santa Teresita, Cagayan, I had entered a geological anomaly profoundly different from places I've conquered so far - enthralling in its oddity and unexpected beauty.
Honestly, this seemingly unnoticed, tiny town was not a priority in my bucket list for this year's inventory of my "#IntoTheWildSeries" adventures. Barely heard, all I know about this silent town was a transit warp going to the paradisiacal municipality of Santa Ana, a coastal town known for its pristine beaches in Cagayan.
I was very wrong...
Days before, it is my religious routine to study maps and do research to the places prior to my visit. A link directed me to an article about Santa Teresita National Ecotourism Festival held every February, taking pride of its ecotourism potential of the numerous caves, cone karst formations and bodies of water as it highlights its falls, rivers, lakes and caves.
Coincidentally, I became interested in the caves in a snap of a finger since I was up into charting my 26th cave excursion into #TheGreatOutdoors.
Santa Teresita is a new site of caving craze in the country with more than 50 caves being discovered and explored since 2013 by international caver expeditions and our very own Cagayan-based SMOC or the Sierra Madre Outdoors Club. Undeniably, caves are now the major tourist drawers of this town. But such geologic marvels also abound in the immensity of Cagayan, especially in PeΓ±ablanca and Baggao, together with its steaming jungles, active volcanoes, pristine beaches and stupendous mountains. It is, but the unusualness of the Teresitian caves that makes them different from the rest of the more than 400 caves found in the province.
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| The second chamber of Tabaco Cave |
The 4th smallest municipality in the province of Cagayan in terms of land area, Santa Teresita is home to about 21,000 inhabitants; a conglomeration of Ilokanos, Ibanags and few Aetas thriving in the timeless villages in its outskirts of the mountains. It was only in 1963 that Santa Teresita formerly called Brgy. Namunit, claimed its township when it separated to its mother town Buguey due to population explosion and economic bustle. It is the youngest town of Cagayan.
Via the Pan Philippine Highway extending into the Magapit-Mission Road where Santa Teresita is accessible at 106km from Tuguegarao City, it sits just the northwestern end of the Sierra Madre range. I was captivated by the jumble of hundred hills and mounds resembling clusters of green chocolate kisses-shaped mounds scattered into a vast, uninterrupted plain. The mounds covered with patches of green vegetation are made up of limestones where numerous cave systems are found. This is so bizarre and rightfully an anomaly. Santa Teresita is not even mountainous, yet it has more caves per square kilometers than any other towns of Cagayan, except probably other than PeΓ±ablanca with more than 300 caves on it. That is given since PeΓ±ablanca is the largest municipality of Cagayan; eleven times more massive than Santa Teresita.
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| A massive formation inside Tabaco |
Actually, there is only a tiny fraction of Sierra Madre that touched the municipality. Its highest elevation is a dismal 115 meters above sea level. That makes Santa Teresita a truly geological anomaly. By definition, Santa Teresita is mountain-less since a mountain is defined as a land formation elevated at more than 300 meters above sea level.
Despite its diminutive land area; smaller than the town of Piat, Santa Teresita, the so called "Shrimp Capital of the North" is exceptionally cave-packed, owing to its more than 60 caves discovery; far from half of those are open to public excursions for obvious safety reasons until fully assessed by the National Museum and Cagayan Tourism Office.
It is still cold, rainy season in Cagayan and the black clouds seemed ever reluctant to leave the sky that morning when our local guide Mr. JR Sabado, a member of a caving tour guide association in the municipality led us to one of Santa Teresita's monumental anomaly: into the dazzling solitariness of TABACO CAVE, so named after the first settlers in that place who tamed the wilderness.
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| Explore Lasam™️ Team led by Saniboy Pacursa (right) |
We were on the prowl with my team coming from nearby town of Gonzaga, now face-to-face with the gigantic past geologic formations as we approached Tabaco's sentinels: massive stalactites hanging from its mouth, as large as Godzilla's sharp teeth.
Serene spectacle of immaculate great white herons feeding from the grasslands near the cave entrance eluded our presence and like a squadron of white fighter jets, flew synchronically out of our sight into the bushes.
The Tabaco Cave is like a mystical woman of innocence from the outside; beautiful and modest with a purity every man wishes to behold. But as you go along the way, it remains somehow almost barely attainable with its hostile multi-chambered, moist subterranean world of darkness. It is easily accessible through the Luga Road with motorcycles or four-wheeled vehicles alike, a mile away from the National Highway; the Magapit-Mission Road. You can even trail it by foot. But that shouldn't make you complacent. I say it again; the Tabaco is unfriendly you would rather choose the comfort of your home; atleast for those who don't dare the art of dirty caving.
But in my blood runs the immortal seed of a true-to-life adventurer; I decided to subdue Tabaco and bring along the trophy of my 26th cave.
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| Lush vegetation surrounding the entrance of Tabaco Cave |
The trail is short, tumbled through grasses and fields; the entrance, surrounded by strangler figs (balete) creeping through its walls and ripe Ficus (tebbeg) decorated the vicinity. Multitudes of birds twittered a more staccato melody than our mumblings.
"They are chanting a welcome song to us", I told my team as I heard them shouting with excitement, "come inside, come inside, it's beautiful here".
As we go deeper, the pale light slowly vanished chamber per chamber, and the path went narrower and muddier; and wetter. We entered a dripping landscape jeweled with countless speleothems with sparkling walls, draped with flowstones, coralloids and draperies like an icing of a cake.
The fiery glow of a Sparrassidae spider compound eyes reflected as our torches hit her, protecting its egg case from intruders like an alien from the gruesome movie Starship Troopers. This viscious arachnid feeds on bent-toed geckos, whip scorpions, crickets and small invertebrates seeking refuge in the darkness. Not too far, a gastropod (Otala punctata snail), a common cave resident, found comfort in the moist, cave walls, sliding past its way among cracks and holes for safety.
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| Biodiversity inside the cave |
The second chamber was a test for stamina and grit. A very squeezing tunnel of mud leading to a dungeon of giant columns and flowstones mystified us with the gargantuan figure of a guardian spirit, an altar formation, Our Lady and a stylized human figure among others. Some may have or hardly been so recognizable without a formidable imagination but no matter what, their presence lends an enduring magic to the cave and that magic adds to the special enchantment that is only found in exploring inhospitable places such as Tabaco.
Here, you must learn the art of cave crawling or duck walking.
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| One of the many chambers of Tabaco |
A series of entrance boggled our minds as we approached the next hollow. Fortunately, our guide knew better. This part of the cave can trick you as several entry points congregate as one to form a maze. To prevent such mistake, a sign was placed, etched from the hanging stalactite near the correct entry point to guide spelunkers inside; the sign broke my heart - a stalactite that guarded the correct way was intentionally cut.
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| The entrance going to the largest chamber, the Big Dome |
We reached the largest part of Tabaco; a vast expanse of emptiness, as large as a coliseum thus the name "the big dome". The big dome can only be appreciated with a powerful pilot lamp; unfortunately our camera flashes and small head lights couldn't saturate the entirety of the coliseum. The dome lends a feel of totally primeval; such a place where evolution of man probably took place - a refuge of our ancestry, the Homos. It reminds me of the domes of Callao Caves where first known Philippine man, the Homo luzonensis thrived and the Lascaux Cave in France where Neanderthal cave arts endured the test of centuries. The high ceiling of the dome harbours cauldron of bats circling an almost perfectly rounded depression like a "siliasi" from above as our lights frantically disturbed them. There, you can only hear their wing flaps and the eternal sound of sprinkles of mineralized water from the tips of hanging stalactites. On this chamber, the cave floors are wet due to the drops and water flows, combined with the rich guanos from the flying mammals. The spectacular view of the nervous bats evoke the unfettered feels of a true nature explorer without fear.
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| A maze that amazes |
The final part of our caving experience at Tabaco yielded a surprise and a bit regret. Below, we need to get past a paddy-like terrain, as wet as a rice field. The nitrogen-rich soil, guano and bat urine concoction flooded our shoes; some of us removed them. I myself would have rejected going in the last and loneliest chamber if it's not for the guides who carried me along past the muddy landscape.
It was a relief though after; we came to a land of a formless abyss, full of spires and stalagmites. A herculean megalith formation was a wonder to behold, shimmering in ever changing lights from our torches. The marvelous formations in this chamber spawned a total abstraction of patterns; a labyrinth of mazes of the underworld; each formation must demand an absolute expansive imagination from a spectator to get the best of it; the rocks possess more than enough on their own.
We escaped out from an exit that was not our entrance and we had a feeling of an intrigue in our minds as we breath another fresh air. Now I know that Tabaco is just the tip of an iceberg of the total potential of Santa Teresita, waiting to be discovered more of its pride. I realized that Santa Teresita is not a barren, bleak landscape, I swear.
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| The entrance to a muddy terrain |
And on a day when the wind was chill, and the sky bonnet-blue with bands of black clouds, I promised to return to the place of unforseen beauty and adventures; to the place of concealed charm not so many initially had thought - thanks to its many fantabulous caves, a representation that Santa Teresita is truly an unexpected geological anomaly.
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