Ironwulf.net Ver 6: En Route - Philippines, Travel, Photography

Wow! I’ve never felt so busy lately. Lots of things to take care of and lots of things to write and look forward to. Just along with some stuff from the Batanes Photo Safari, I still have to write about some sites from Pangasinan. This is just another short posts briefing some of the places we visited in Iloilo and Guimaras and something to for you guys to watch out for. We only had a limited time so we have to pick some spots. Iloilo and Guimaras is huge!

When we arrived in Casa Dela Playa in Sandugan, Larena, we didn’t waste much time to be back on the road again. After checking our beach front house, leaving some of our things and being friendly with the resort dogs. Yes I said dogs (there’s a really friendly and cute one there)! We hopped on our AUV and decided to spend the rest of the afternoon at the municipality of Lazi down south.

I thought I would never be able to go on with this trip. I had a flu that seems to resurface for the past couple of weeks. And when I thought I was well already, I swam and had my flu back again. Talking about stubborn. I knew I had a trip coming real soon which made me a bit frustrated being in sickbay. Come November 1 morning, the day we were about to leave, I decided to push through despite having a fever the night before and some persistent dry cough. I was feeling a bit better when I woke up so off I go headed to the domestic airport for Dumaguete and Siquijor. I always thought, hey this may be the best time to see if those Mananambals (healers) in Siquijor could relieve me of my sickness.

The second falls, simply named as Falls 2, is not far from the first waterfall, Dongon Falls. Just a short habal-habal going down the road from Dongon falls, you’ll reach the entrance gate. The place has been developed into a park and there’s an entrance fee of Php 5.00 per person. The thought of the place being developed somehow irked me at first as those developments on some natural sights did much worse than improving them. Does Falls 2 suffer the same fate?

Aside from Lake Sebu being the name of the natural lake, Lake Sebu is also the name of the whole municipal area in the province south west of South Cotabato. The lake is not the only attraction in the area as there are 2 more lakes and 7 waterfalls in which visitors may explore. So early the next day, we rode our habal-habal and headed to see two of the 7 waterfalls. First one of which is the Dongon Waterfalls.

It’s been quite a while since I’ve been out on the road. So when a fellow climber and one of the officers of MFPI Ms Ruby, invited me to join an Akyat-Aklat Outreach Project by Batch 19 of of MFPI’s individual members, I jumped at the opportunity and hey it would be a great start for the year to do an outreach. Last outreach I’ve done was way back in 2001. So off we go to Cambulo, Ifugao.

Kagbuho Falls in Pagbilao is another off-the beaten track destination in southern Luzon region. It was so way off-the-beaten path that we were also so off-beaten lost to find this falls to the point of almost giving up. The fact that we have no guide with us and have to rely on directions from the locals we pass by, it took at least 3 hours to find it inside the forest. We only have the Palsabangon river as our guide and as much as possible never to loose it in our sight if we dare not to get deeper lost. After 2 hours of lots of river crossings we came to where the locals called the “Lihisan“, the second river tributary where we were supposed to go to the right. That’s where we got really lost looking for the right trail. Fortunately after we almost decided to give up the search, a local came by and we managed to convince the guy to point us to the right direction. The local himself haven’t been there yet but he knows where it is. I noticed this on a number of places we have been that a lot of locals haven’t even been to their own Natural Wonders.