AURORA | Maria Aurora’s 600 Year-Old Balete Tree

Monday, November 14, 2011

Dubbed locally as the Millennium tree, this huge Balete located on one of Maria Aurora’s dirt roads has been attracting the attention of local visitors of Baler.

It is unimaginably huge that it would take 60 adult individuals, holding hands together, to fully encircle its trunk. It’s massiveness becomes evident as my friends started walking towards it, they looked like little kids beside the tree.

Balete trees wrap themselves like parasites on the trunks and branches of a host tree. And this is an excellent example of what happens over time, the original tree in the middle is now gone, leaving a hollow inside the Balete.

A passage between its twisted roots allows visitors to even access this hollow; it fitted all six of easily inside. It was dark, hot and humid at the core of the Balete with only shafts of light passing through its roots illuminating its creepy interior.

The place looked both sacred and mystical. Local knowledge always associate the Balete tree with supernatural elements and I’ve read a blog post about some UP professors sensing elementals and Tikbalangs living on the tree. That didn’t stop us from exploring its bowels though.
We exited at the other side of the tree. Climbing its thick roots, the girls proceeded with their photo ops

It is said that this tree is the oldest of its kind in the whole of Asia, hopefully it would last a few hundred more years with the help of both the locals and its visitors.

 

                               Balete Park
                               Purok Bagong Sikat 1, Barangay Quirino
                               Maria Aurora, Aurora

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9 comments

  1. A nice trivia..
    Balete trees always scare me.

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  2. did you try shooting it at night? hehehe :D

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  3. Woah! I wanna see this in person and penetrate its core! Tarush. Hahahaha.

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  4. The hollows of Balete trees seems it can accommodate an entity or elemental that's why it is dubbed magical or house of elementals... and these tree in Aurora is not an exception but the tree seems to be a good spot for photo opts never mind the stories.

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  5. eye-catching sakin ang mga balete tree... wish i could do photo collections of balete trees from diff. places i travelled. more power!

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  6. Ang galing ng last shot, it gave me a bit of perspective on the size of the Balete.

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  7. i'm going to aurora in a couple of weeks, will try to get this in in our itinerary. thanks for this post. great shots, by the way :)

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  8. wwo can't believe that there is still a very old tree in pinas...hindi po ba dyan nakakatakot..lol! thanks for sharing po..would love to visit it one day! great shots!

    Natures's Beauty
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  9. Simurgh
    Probably due to the Balete Drive stories when we were kids :P

    Romz
    Wouldn't dare to :D

    Robbie
    And you finally did :)

    Ian
    Hahha oo nga, never mind the stories :)

    Morion
    Nice idea :)

    Lakwatsera de Primera
    To give scale to a photo, dapat may reference point talaga like people :)

    Gladys
    Thanks! Hope you had a good trip

    Redruby
    There's still some old trees in the Philippines :)

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