Finally, I managed to finished my travelogue to Mt Humarap.. Really having difficulties to write since I really caught up with some personal issues. Although it has been 9 months pass, the sweet memories during my visit there seems like only a few days ago. I really love to visit this place again and hopefully complete my visit to magnificent old chruches of Rizal and Laguna (completing it is next in my bucket lists).
If I was to use one word or two to convince you to visit this city, what word would I choose…… old churches? lakeshore?
No, the most persuasive word I can think of is Panungayan (we met a this old man selling panungayan on our way up to Mt humarap). The fruit is a round to oval single seeded berry. The leathery skin is reddish and covered with fleshy pliable spines, panungayan really looks like and taste like rambutan.
I wasn’t really sure what to expect from my trip to Paete – I knew it was famous for its woodcarving and some pastries. Jackie and Kenneth (my best climbing buddies) is joining me in this trip. Our first stop is the old church of rizal San Ildefonso Parish Church, then off to Mt Humarap via Maybunga falls then our last stop the old chruch of paete Saint James the Apostle Church.
If you’re a sucker for anything woodcarving related, make sure you visit Paete's woodcarving stores and their market, the market has a huge collection of colourful fruit and vegetable stands and just about every other culinary offering you could imagine. It would be easy to spend an hour or two here strolling down down the lane-ways, stopping for some food taste along the way. Eventually the food stalls give way to a full-blown flea market which is held every Sunday.
Some of the houses were built with "through" walkways, so people could get from one street to another, and this is what we did on our way up to Mt humarap and maybunga falls and on our way to the center of Paete's municipality.
The trip ended at the Saint James the Apostle Church, which is very impressive. It sits directly in the center of the town, high above everything else. It was originally built in 1884. The church is Paete's most significant building. There are still several masses a day, and masses on Sundays. The church facade is still amazing and magnificent to the eyes, i think it is possible climb to get a view over all of Paete. I didn't have time and permission to climb up, but i did go inside for awhile.
The old style churches tended to be not that tall and not that wide. They included vertical lines in the architecture to draw your eyes upwards, and a tall spire.Maybe they believed that the taller it got, the closer you got to God as well??. Amazing that a church like that is still standing after hundreds of years.
A word of warning before you go to Paete – try not to compare Paete or Pangil to Pakil or Mabitac. These municipalities are completely different and both worthy of a visit for different reasons.
