Excursion to Kawalsan Falls

We had a nice and leisurely morning in Moalboal. Quo Vidis was a pretty good little beach resort, not the most expensive in Moalboal, but it seemed to have better and more spacious grounds, and views than many of the other hotels. Katy and I stayed in a room with a fan and no view for a whole $20 a night. If you want a room with AC and a view, you’re looking at $40. It’s the off season (rainy season) here in the Philippines, so there aren’t too many people here at the resort with us. We had breakfast at the resort restaurant, and just look at the view from our table!

Gotta love that! Angie was right, the Philippines has spoiled me with their superior banana and mango. They have soooooooooo much more flavor here, it will be hard going back to them at home.

We (Vance, David, Mark, Katy and I) went down the road to Badian to hike Kawalsan Falls. Now, when they told me that we were going to hike a waterfall, I pictured something a little different than what we encountered on the trail. Maybe you are accustomed to hiking trails in the Columbia Gorge where it really is just a whole lot of nature, unobstructed…well, not so much here. Hopefully this series of photos will help you to see what I saw on the hike.

We parked at the trail head, which was a church parking lot. As we walked by the church, we came across this really great sign titled “12 Little Things Every Filipino Can Do to Help Our Country”. When I read through the list, I couldn’t help but wonder if these were in no particular order. I especially like number 4 and 6. In the States, we say Reduce, Reuse, Recycle…but here it is Segregate, Recycle, Conserve.

With Filipino tip number 6 in mind, I was quite impressed to see the garbage cans set up along the trail all ready for segregating. Way to be eco-friendly!

Another thing I didn’t expect to see along the trail was a “Magic on Wheels” ice cream tricycle…but no one was around to sell me some ice cream, so I kept on walking.

The next thing I saw was a group of people doing laundry. This made more sense later when I saw that people actually live along this trail. There were a number of houses along the path. Families had their "free range" chickens running around the woods.

But my favorite encounter along the way was a friendly little goat.

As we were walking, we came across a vine hanging down into the river…Katy decided to pull a Tarzan move but the vine was rotten and she went rolling down the river.

Another unexpected sight was a small little hydroelectric dam on the smallest river you ever saw.

There were cottages along the trail and a dive of a hotel built on the lower falls, but I wouldn’t ever recommend it as a great place to stay…looked like a place for some creepy creepertons. No thank you! The upper falls and lower falls had tons of people spending time cooling off in the misty waters. I love misty waters, I love waterfalls (that line’s dedicated to Dad).

What you didn’t see before this photo was the shot of liquid motivation the guy took up on the rocks before he jumped. Call me crazy, but boozing and cliff jumping doesn’t seem like a very good combo.

When we approached the upper falls, Katy could hear the locals talking about us. She said they were trying to figure out how we all fit together. They were asking each other, “Are they both married to him?” “No, maybe she’s married to him (Katy) and she’s (me) the helper.”

I’m not gonna lie, we were a big attraction at the falls. When Katy got in the water, she was met by a group of enamored followers who quickly joined in a synchronized swim to the falls. Later, Katy was taking some cheesy glamour shots (by Deb) of me sitting in the raft. As I got up, an extremely short Filipino man, who didn’t even come up to my shoulder, wanted to take a photo with me, while all his buddies were cheering…it could have been the guys from the large group of jeepneys with homemade signs labeled “guys without girlfriends” at the trailhead. All in all, hiking Kawalsan Falls was an interesting experience, not like hiking any other trail I’ve been down. More on the trip back to Moalboal and the Moalboal market tomorrow.