I had a fairly decent sleep despite all the animal noises. There was a cow mooing to join the dogs, the roosters and the pigs. I dragged myself out of bed at 7:45AM to get some coffee. Unfortunately my room didn’t have a kettle so I couldn’t have a hot coffee in bed.
I ordered breakfast with my coffee. I planned on going to the Leboc Ecotourism Adventure Park, which opened at 8:30AM. I wanted to get there early to avoid the lines. The only thing to do there was zip line over the river. For 450PHP, you can zip line two ways, about 500 meters each way. The zip line offered gorgeous views over the river with a view of Busay Falls.
After, I went off in search of two bridges. On the firefly tour, we passed under a bridge that I thought was the ‘hanging bridge’ I’d read about in the area. It was not. It was called the Camaya-an Hanging Bridge. No one was there. I had service on my phone so I looked for the other ‘hanging bridge’, which was called the Sipatan Twin Hanging Bridge. It was 35PHP to walk across the twin bridges.
The twin bridges were made of bamboo and were very rickety. I thought the bamboo was going to snap under my feet causing me to fall through to the river below. The bamboo apparently gets replaced very second month and the bridges have been there for over thirty years. It was a quick visit but worth it!
I went back to my hotel and decided to go to the restaurant next door called Food and Fables. They advertised ‘healthy’ food. I ordered some plantain ‘chips with salsa and a green papaya salad along with a beer. (380PHP) The food was OK, not great.
I had organized to have the boat from my guesthouse take me out for a few hours in the afternoon. I wanted to go to Busay Falls and the only way to get there was by boat. It was 800PHP to rent the boat for the afternoon. Two boatmen, neither of which spoke English, took me out on the river and over to the waterfall. The driver hopped in the water with me and enjoyed a quick swim but wasn’t a strong swimmer. The other guy indicated that it was too cold. It was 31°.
I played around in the water for almost an hour. It was clean and refreshing! There were three tiny waterfalls along the river and I swam to each one. On the way back from the waterfalls, the boatmen stopped at a natural cold spring. The place was packed with locals and there was a lot of excitement when we pulled up. I hopped in the water, which was icy cold, but it wasn’t that clean and there were a lot of bugs flying just above the water. We didn’t stay for too long.
It was a lovely afternoon on the water and nice to be in a small boat on my own. There were plenty of big cruise boats going up and down the river. They offered buffet lunches and some had live music but you couldn't jump into the water from those boats. I read online that renting a small boat was much better than the big cruise boats. I agreed as it was up to me to decide what to do!
We got back around dinner time so I ordered some chicken curry with rice along with a beer at my guesthouse. (330PHP) I wanted to go back to the Lodge Restaurant and Bar for dinner but was tired from a full day of activities. I got back into my room around 7:00PM and caught up on some photos and my journal. I turned out my lights fairly early, hoping to get a decent sleep!
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