My step count must have numbered in the hundreds when I paused to survey my surroundings. I saw the fisherman who had greeted me earlier as he was fixing his fishing net, appearing like a small dot from far away. I turned my head and saw no one else within yelling distance—except for a couple of dogs who were following me. For a few minutes, I sat on a protruding branch of a fallen tree and just wrapped my mind around the solitary vibe of the spot. I started to wonder how such a stunning place remains uncrowded on an afternoon showered with the riveting golden rays of the sun.

Opening my eyes to a still-dark room had me instantly recalling the eerie creaking of the floorboards I heard the night before. Jolted to consciousness, I half-expected to see a shadowy figure standing at the foot of my bed. I saw nothing but the faint illumination of electric light seeping through the small window. Pacifying my anxious mind, I assured myself that a bunch of scurrying rats were behind what I initially thought were hurried footsteps outside my room. Hearing noises during the previous three nights would have been fine, but on that fourth night in question, I was the only remaining guest staying at the budget hut of Punta Isla Lake Resort—where a dorm bed only cost me one hundred eighty pesos per night. Not bad, even if it comes with a slight fright every evening!

The sky was the color of mud, raindrops pelting us sideways, and the wind growing stronger by the minute. All we could hear was the rambling of the hardly visible river. Our guide told us what we had expected to hear the moment we arrived at the brook’s edge: “Negative, the water is too strong, we cannot ride the boats,” he told us in Tagalog. Nobody protested at the obviously correct call of our guide. While there was an ounce of disappointment, I simply chalked this place up in my ‘see you next time’ list despite the uncertainty of my future travel schedules.

After spending several days in Lake Sebu in South Cotabato, I went back to General Santos for a few nights' stay. Taking full advantage of my time in the Tuna Capital of the Philippines, I met up with July, a friend I first met during my trip with Meaningful Travels PH to Barlig, Mountain Province a few years back.