Saturday, 22nd October 2011
Sis Irene and Sis Marilou arrived at Shalom at 7.00am to accompany us to Bro Sonny and Sis Releesa's house. Sarah and Noah stayed back at Shalom for a quiet day, as Noah needed a rest day. The rest of us piled into a taxi to go to the bus terminal along with Sis Irene and Sis Marilou.
Our transport for today was very efficient, the bus was leaving as the taxi arrived. The conductor told us the journey was only two hours, but with the traffic it turned out to be closer to three hours (which is what we were expecting). Bro Sonny arrived with his trike to collect us from the side of the road about 10 mins after getting off the bus. Irene and Marilou both managed to sleep on the bus, mum and I managed to get very sore bottoms from the terrible seats.
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| Silas on the bus with Aunty Marilou and Aunty Irene |
It was very nice to see Bro Sonny again (it was also very nice to be remembered) along with his wife Sis Raleesa. There are ongoing renovations at their house, they are raising the floor by nearly half a metre. The kitchen and dining area still has a dirt floor, but the bedrooms and bathrooms are concreted and tiled.
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| Bro Sonny and Sis Raleesa on the left |
Lunch was served early (so we would have time to visit the falls), it was bbq fish, crumbed chicken drumsticks, rice and senorita bananas. Then Silas went with Bro Sonny to fetch the car from a friend that had borrowed it. Whilst returning to the house Silas was leaning across and sounding the horn at any and every opportunity.
The Pagsanjan falls are located out of town, up stream. The usual way is to take a boat trip from the town to the falls. The other way that we were going to do costs only one tenth of the price. We drove to the top of the falls and were going to take the steps down to the bottom (Bro Sonny's father owns some of the land at the top of the falls), but then we ran into a problem, the national park people won't allow anyone below 12 to use the steps, so we drove back into town to take the boats.
Silas was disappointed that we wouldn't be climbing down the side of the cliff, but this was soon forgotten by the excitement of taking a canoe up the river and through the rapids. We were reasonably wet by the time we arrived at the falls. The view along the way small waterfalls and the green forest is majestic. At the base of the main waterfall we took a raft that took us under and behind the falls into a small cave. Then we all had a short swim in the cave. It was very noisy in the cave – the screaming of Silas and Eden didn't help. We all had another swim once we had returned from under the waterfall.
The journey back downstream to the town was just as pretty. The rapids were more exciting. I must also tell we were paddled upstream in our canoes by two guides per canoe – they had a tough job getting us up to the falls, and the return journey was much faster. I am always astounded by the lack of information that tourists get in the Philippines, nowhere were we told what this boat trip involved, that we would be entirely saturated or how long it would take. The only reason that we were prepared was because we had looked up on the internet the day before and read other peoples reviews of the place.
I was amused to see some tourists (Korean I think) wearing face masks on the boat trip, perhaps they were not used to breathing fresh air!
After the boat trip we we returned to the Ramos house for more food, we were given an early tea (more fish, chicken and rice along with bbq pork, veges and sweet potatoes). Our stay was rather short because we had to catch the bus before 6:00pm.
The return trip to Manila was quicker as there was less traffic. We were treated to the sights of lightening and a thunderstorm on the horizon.
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