By Conrad J. Benedicto

“All around the pool, the roots of the old banyans were hanging down from the rocky cliff—thick vertical veins of gnarled wood that ended in bulb-like knobs that were enveloped within the delicate fronds of tiny green ferns. It felt like a page out of a fantasy book.”

I love geology, but I’m no geologist. So when I say that Sibutu appears to be a volcanic island, that’s not an expert assessment. But there seems to be vesicular basalt everywhere, black, sharp and filled with little air pockets. And there is a conical outline of a weathered volcano on one side from which the rest of the island formation seems to have flowed. The absolute highlight of our short afternoon visit here was a natural spring, called Kabankaban. It is a deep dark pool of chilly freshwater at the bottom of a huge crevice in the basaltic bedrock in the middle of the island, ringed by ancient mossy banyans. After repeatedly checking with our amazing guide, Al Raffy Harun, to make sure that we were truly being invited to do so, I jumped down into its depths and was engulfed breathtakingly by the land. All around the pool, the roots of the old banyans were hanging down from the rocky cliff—thick vertical veins of gnarled wood that ended in bulb-like knobs that were enveloped within the delicate fronds of tiny green ferns. It felt like a page out of a fantasy book. And since I jumped in after asking permission, both from our hosts and with a quiet petition to the land, it felt as close to being blessed by the waters as a person could feel. Afterwards, we got a chance to simply sit by the seaside and watch youngsters, their glinting hair made blond-red by the sun, harvest the Agal Agal seaweed the island is known for while the distinctive boats of the Sama sailed by. The breeze was just right, blowing by us on its way to Brunei, less than two hours away.

Memories of Mindanao, Part 2