“Forward! Remember that from these monuments yonder forty centuries look down upon you,” Napoleon Bonaparte declared to his troops as they geared up for the Battle of the Pyramids in July 1798. Indeed, the history of the great pyramids dated back to one of Earth's ancient civilizations. This fact made my experience feel all the more surreal. I recalled staring at the pyramids with wide eyes while standing immobile, engrossed in a spectacular, fleeting moment. There was no better way to cap our Holy Land trip than with a chance to see the Great Pyramid of Giza up close.

It didn’t happen every day that I got to wake up in a new and unfamiliar place. Yet there I was stirring into consciousness from a deep slumber in the province of Basilan. A full day had passed since I stepped out of a ferry ship from Zamboanga, shattering my previous misconceptions about this province.

As it entered its tenth year, the #NLEXLakbayNorte continued to promote more tourist destinations in Northern Luzon. However, due to the global pandemic, the usual five to six-day caravan across several provinces was curtailed to a shorter trip focusing on just one province. This writer of Nomadic Experiences was recently invited to participate in the two-day familiarization tour of Nueva Ecija. Following IATF-enforced safety protocols, we explored other must-visit places in the province known as the “rice granary of the Philippines”.

We rarely came across companies that put advocacy and employee empowerment at the center of their corporate mission, but Glorious Industrial and Development Corporation—GIDC, the Stevia Company—was setting the model. As the first stevia grower and manufacturer in the Philippines, GIDC harvested and marketed Sweet and Fit Stevia, the foremost stevia herbal dietary supplement registered by the Food and Drug Administration in the Philippines, as its main weapon in leading the charge against diabetes. Grown and harvested in the Philippines exclusively by GIDC, Sweet and Fit Stevia was free of calories, cholesterol, carbohydrates, and had zero glycemic index.