Snippets: Don Salvador Benedicto

Taken November 11, 2009...this is undoubtedly one of my favorite views of Negros. I remember driving all the way here last October 11, almost exactly six years after this photo was take, just to sit and stare at the view. I had to drive for over two hours (because I got lost along the way since I was alone and refused to ask for directions) before I managed to park the car at the side of the road and breathe in the moment. Despite my feet hurting from the non-stop drive, just to sit still and listen to my roadtrip playlist made it all worth it. 

To get lost in the moment and find myself staring into the world in silent mediation are times that's a little hard to come by these days. Especially with a landscape like this. A contemplative moment of appreciation for the world is always a good thing to do, every now and then. To get away from it all and live for the moment, a different perspective of the term YOLO...no adrenaline rush, rather a subtle way of realizing that it's good to be alive, even for just one lifetime. That was how I felt that day.

I've passed by here a couple of times, mostly with friends or family for a trip to a resort or Dumaguete. Ever since the first time I passed by the area and looked out the window, I promised myself then that one day I'll be returning to this very spot on my own just so I won't be in a hurry; to no longer just see this place as a stretch of road but a temporary stop where I created a memory. That moment finally happened, and it was bliss...a stark contrast of what I felt like arriving back home after five long hours of driving in total that day.

The road sits at the foot of Mt. Talisay, just a few kilometers from the start of the zigzag incline going to San Carlos city. Considering that the car I brought then was a Grand Livina...I was not willing to regret the decision if I fall off the cliff because the engine cannot sustain the steep incline if I went on further the pass. What you're seeing is a horizon full of sugarcane plantations, subdivided into haciendas. It's usually around the last quarter of the year when farmers begin to cut down the crop for the milling season, hence tall lush green hues emit in the scene, the sign of a mature cane.