Philippines Day 3 - Moal Boal

We woke up early and watched the sun come up. It was amazing!

We then packed up and hired a private van to take us to Badian, where the Kawasan Falls are located. A van there is a like a mini van but the driver is in a cab and the back is similar to a covered pick up truck with two benches down the side. It was my favorite way to travel because the wind kept us cool.

It cost us $7 to have a private van as opposed to $1 to ride the bus. Sometimes comfort is worth it! The road down was breathtaking.

We arrived at the base of the Kawasan Falls hike pretty early in the morning since we started our trip at about 6:00. It was an easy walk with amazing scenery.

 

There were some huts along the way. Of course they had roosters! There are three in this picture. Most homes have these perches for their roosters outside.

The falls.

We swam behind and through the falls. It was amazing and the water was perfect!

After swimming for a while we hiked up to the upper falls but decided to keep going past them. We were told the spring source was about a 15 minute hike farther up.

The upper falls

It wasn't the actual source of the spring but more falls. John did a little cliff jumping with some new Filipino friends.

The bridge (made out of bamboo) to cross the river to more falls.

Then we headed back down to the upper falls and took another dip before headed back down.

We had hiked in so early we didn't realize that the little river running next to the path would be affected by the tide coming in. When we went back down it was all filled in. It reminding us of the Amazon.

 

So beautiful!

The bus ride back to Moal Boal was another adventure in transportation! There were no seats so it was hang on for your life! Literally!!! I had to use both hands and I was swinging all over the place. Plus the seats are packed with tons of people so its a challenge not to be thrown into them. It was a great upper arm workout :)

After we got back we decided to try snorkeling off our beach. HOLY COW! We were shocked. We knew there was some coral but we didn't really understand that it was all part of a reef. We saw tons of fish, a sea snake, crabs, it was amazing. It was kind of windy so we decided not to stay out too long. We had a little mango and bread for dinner and were in bed by 7:30 again :)