“Isang libong hakbang paakyat (A thousand steps up),” Anthony Coteng, an Alab Oriente barangay official and my tour guide for the climb, suddenly said. We had negotiated around 300 steps by then. The village, the rice terraces and the strips of wilderness we had earlier passed already seemed too far away. Going back was no longer an option for me.

I had come to Alab Oriente in Bontoc, Mountain Province, to see the Alab Petroglyphs. It had been more than a decade since I first heard about it. My curiosity had been awakened then by how it was described — “ancient engravings of phallic symbols on a stone.” I made the promise that I would one day see it for myself. Bravely did I take another step, far, far from my thousandth upward climb, but certain and determined. I took deep breaths, filling my heart and my spirit.

“Ipinagawa ng gobyerno itong hagdang batong ito noon pang 1970s (Government had these stone steps built in the 1970s),” Anthony said, “bata pa ako noon (I was still a child then).” Overgrown with mosses and lichen, the rains of the past few days had made the stone steps slippery. My sandals, made of plastic, didn’t expect the ordeal.

“Hindi pa nga tayo nakarating sa 1/4 ng ating akyat (We have not even reached a fourth of our climb),” Anthony replied when I asked him how much farther we would yet go. He walked a few paces behind me, with his mobile phone and handheld radio. Our climb was being monitored by his fellow barangay officials. They were in the loop, he said, so that should anything untoward happen, they could rescue us.

How lovely the clouds and how green the mountain slopes were. I gave gratitude for being present that very moment, for literally stepping up for my Alab Petroglyphs dream, and for having the will and strength to climb a thousand steps just months away from my senior year. The towering pine trees shaded us from the sun, and their barked bodies served as my grip posts. Pine needles and pine cones softened the texture of the land.

Anthony gathered mushrooms as we climbed. Striped umbrellas with shiny yellow underlining, the mushrooms looked both dainty and delicious. I asked if they could be eaten fresh. He shook his head and said that he would cook them first.

“How do you know that they are the edible ones?” I asked. He raised one mushroom, showing off its undersides that glistened in the light of the midday sun. 

Ferns, among them the edible pako fern that tastes great as salad, littered the sides of the stone steps as we climbed higher. Their curled edible tips tempted me, a reminder that I did not take anything at all before the climb, to be as light as possible for the uphill trek.

“Magsuot ka ng makapal, o magjacket, malamig doon (Wear a jacket, or something thick, the weather is cold out there),” Ivy Chugsayan from the Bontoc Municipal Tourism Office, who had arranged my climb, had advised me. It is best to make a courtesy call at their office if you want a well-coordinated visit to the Alab Petroglyphs. Ivy was right. But as soon as we reached the fourth of the climb, sweat started to fill my brows and to course through my body.

The paved and even stone steps we were climbing soon came to a stop. Anthony led the way to another set of stone steps. “Ang aakyatin natin ngayon ay mga batong gawa pa ng mga Igorot noong unang panahon (From this point on, we would be climbing the stone steps built by the Igorots during ancient times),” he proudly declared. 

Naturally molded on the mountain slopes, the Igorot ancestors’ stone steps served as perfect footholds. I immediately felt the call to go barefoot, to experience precious moments of earthing and grounding. The stones massaged my soles each upward step, easing the tiredness of my feet, of my whole body and, yes, even of my soul. 

Somewhere near the climb’s halfway point, we reached a wide stonewall. I clearly distinguished several faces etched on it. I knew in my heart that they were the faces of the ancestors, manifesting, welcoming me to their realm. I asked Anthony if he could see them, and he just smiled. I asked if his grandparents were among those who built the stone steps and the stonewall. He said that he wasn’t yet born at the time to know if a grandparent of his was among them. But he was certain that all of those who worked there were Igorots like him.

“They were your ancestors, too,” I told him.

They may not have been related by blood, but they came from the same mountain home, perhaps the same town, and at the very least the same Cordillera region. They were his ancestors in the very same way that I claim them as my very own, for we come from the same country, and my heart, like theirs once did, beats in the same sacred land.

The blue sky rang with birdsong. Far, far below, Alab Oriente looked like a miniature village. A few steps more, this time on bare mountain soil, and I saw a signage: Petroglyphs. It took me about two hours and a half, but I had reached the Alab Petroglyphs.

“Isa siyang rock outcrop na may mga guhit na sexual symbols (It’s a rock outcrop with drawings of sexual symbols.),” Anthony had earlier described the Alab Petroglyphs. The articles and travel blogs I had the chance to read when I researched about the petroglyphs pretty much described them in the same way, if in different words. Likewise, the people from the inn where I stayed, from the park where I visited a bazaar, and the people on the streets in general that I had the chance to chat with, expressed the same thing. 

I was ready to encounter ancient engravings of genitalia. I thought of the temples I visited in other Asian countries, where I had seen representations of lingams and yonis, the male and female principles, the yin and the yang, the divine masculine and divine feminine, and I felt proud that my country has something similar.

But when I saw the petroglyphs, I didn’t just see the phallic symbols. I saw pyramids, ancient writings and portals. Despite time, nature and some vandals who had disrespected the site (the reason why it is fenced and protected at present, and visitors have to follow viewing rules), messages manifested on the stone. They reminded me of the Egyptian cuneiforms — triangles, lines, dots — and spoke to me from other timelines and dimensions. Besides being phallic symbols, the engravings, in my eyes, were codes, messages waiting to be read and further understood. 

Facing the galaxy and the whole cosmos, the Alab Petroglyphs is a love letter, petroglyphs of love, from our ancestors. It reminds us that we are not alone, that other dimensions and other timelines reach out to us beyond the veil, reminding us of realities beyond our whims, our survival mode and our endless quests for validation.  

The Alab Petroglyphs is a portal, connecting us to other beings, to other realities, and to Kabunian, an ever-loving God, in whatever name we may call Him.