Lake Rosario, Kapatagan © Jojie Alcantara

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“It is a pity indeed to travel and not get this essential sense of landscape values. You do not need a sixth sense for it. It is there if you just close your eyes and breathe softly through your nose; you will hear the whispered message, for all landscapes ask the same question in the same whisper. ‘I am watching you — are you watching yourself in me?’

Most travelers hurry too much…the great thing is to try and travel with the eyes of the spirit wide open, and not to much factual information. To tune in, without reverence, idly — but with real inward attention. It is to be had for the feeling…you can extract the essence of a place once you know how. If you just get as still as a needle, you’ll be there.” ~ Lawrence Durrell, Spirit Of Place: Letters And Essays On Travel

Lake Rosario is situated halfway up in the Mount Apo Protected Area Park, at a higher elevation blessed with cool climate year round. It is one of the most beautiful landscapes I’m lucky to have captured at this time.  From the distance, you see white cloud capping protectively over the peak of my country’s tallest and majestic mountain, Mount Apo (of which I had the honor of climbing only once in my lifetime, but that’s another story).

Best viewed in large image here