Travel Blog 2: Pagsanjan falls, Laguna

Last week when I fetched my sister from her last hospital duty as an intern, her first words to me were "Ate, labas tayo!" I thought it was a simple gimmick or malling, but she meant it as an "out of town" trip somewhere we'd never been to before. And she wanted it within that week or the following week. I immediately thought that the timing of the trip could be a hindrance because it was short notice and plane tickets could be expensive then.

2 days after, a trip was set for Puerto Princesa, Palawan. Yehey! Underground river here I come. But it was also cancelled because my sister chose to prioritise her clearance from the hospital where she had her internship. I had mixed reactions about it. Instead, my parents planned to go to Pagsanjan Falls & Kamay ni Hesus as Mother's Day celebration. Never mind it was also the fight of Manny Pacquiao but it was the opportunity and the only time we could all go out.

It was cloudy when we left home at past 6am. While cruising along South Luzon Expressway, that was when it started to rain. We first arrived at Kamay Ni Hesus at Lucban, Quezon at past 9am. It was raining and windy. The uphill garden was closed to the public because the steps were so slippery. I just took shots of the statues from our spot below outside of the church. Parts of the Garden of Eden were open but it was small compared to what could be seen in the garden. We also didn't get to see the interior of Noah's Ark because a retreat was being conducted. Because of the unfriendly weather, we all decided to skip and re-schedule the Pagsanjan Falls trip at a later date. In exchange, we all craved for a hot delicious bulalo as lunch. By 11:30, we were on the road back north and listened to a live broadcast of the Pacquiao-Mosley bout.

Pagsanjan Falls

We had lunch at Pagsanjan, Laguna by past 12. Surprisingly, it stopped raining, the sky became clear and the sun seemed to shine. The river became busy with swarms of korean tourists riding small boats heading upstream towards the falls. Since we were already there, we decided to go for it. After inquiring around, we settled to get two boats (max of 3 persons per boat + 2 boatmen each) to take us to the falls. The trip upstream was longer because we were riding against the current and the boatmen had to literally push the boat against the rocks. We passed by 3 smaller falls before we saw the main attraction. We left all of our things (bags, watches, glasses, cameras & even my slippers) at the rocks with 1 of the boatmen as the "watcher" before we rode a bamboo raft & went underneath the falls. The bamboo raft was strongly & tightly secured to big ropes & was navigated by a very muscled native. I had the coldest, hardest, & most unique shower of my life & definitely got drenched from head to toe! After 5 minutes, we were heading back to the rocks. It was so "bitin". I really wished to go back for round two. Haha! Unfortunately, the muscled man said one round lang. Awww.. After staying at the rocks for another 5 minutes, we decided to go back. It was faster going downstream, less effort for our boatmen because we were going with the flow. It also poured hard on our way back. I was careful with my DSLR because I don't want it to get wet. We got back at the river banks past 4 pm and hurriedly changed out of our wet clothes. We were all happy and we enjoyed the trip. It was worth it!