Day 5 and we're now in CDO. But this time, we're going to the neighboring city of Iligan. We started early but not too early, probably around 7AM. We hired a van to take us around Iligan, the City of Majestic Waterfalls.
Our first stop was Tinago Falls which is an hour drive from CDO. From the drop off point, I think it was around 20 minutes to go down to reach the falls itself, a steep thousand steps down and then another agonizing thousand steps up. Tinago Falls in the Tagalog dialect means "hidden", hence, the name. But, it was far from hidden from locals and foreign tourists alike.
It was a beautiful morning. We could hear the strong rush of the falls as we approached it, and could feel the spray of the waters coming down. Mind you, the water was extremely cold.
The picture above is of our "bangkero" pulling our raft towards the waterfalls. The water is said to be very deep to swim towards the falls. Together with the water coming down the falls, it would be difficult to swim to it. You can rent life vests in the area for safety.
I'm standing on the face of the wall, but that's not the Tinago Falls (it's the one pictured on the rightmost part). Quite scary and if you're not careful enough you could fall down and scratch yourself big time going to the edge to where I'm standing. From the picture it doesn't seem that high but really, it is. More than 10-feet drop to the water. Of course I had to jump and so I did. And that was one of the best parts of my day. The other one was jumping from another face of a wall. A good 10-minute of scaling up the rock wall and then jumping more than 20-feet down to the cold water.
By mid-morning we headed to Mimbalut Falls. I forgot what the name means. It's a 20-minute drive from Tinago Falls. We didn't get a chance to swim there or scale the falls.
Amazing to look at isn't it? You can stay all day if you like and just listen to the rushing waters. The place has a calming effect and another perk that day was that there wasn't much people either.
Here is a picture of me below the falls, but not directly underneath it. Whenever you're there, be careful when taking pictures especially the one I took above. The rocks are very sharp and possibly you'll get your bones broken if you do fall badly. (Sorry for the morbidity!) We didn't stay long enough, probably less than an hour. It was almost lunchtime then.
Before going inside the Macapagal Manasion, paternal ancestral house of former Pres. Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, we had our lunch at a nearby restaurant. There were rows of restaurants in front of the said ancestral house, serving up delicious grilled meat and seafood.
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| Yummy!!!! |
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| Front gate |
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| Two former presidents Left: Former US Pres. Bill Clinton Right: Former Phil. Pres. Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo |
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| Dollhouse for Gloria |
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| Swingset from a tree |
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| This is the inside of the power plant from where we can see |
Green and renewable source for energy in the Iligan City. Nature is indeed powerful and we should harness that power to provide energy to the people. The importance of this is that it is clean, eco-friendly. If only we can harness renewable sources of energy in the entire country.
It was afternoon and it was time to go. It started to drizzle a little bit. Before going back to CDO, we had a short stop at some pasalubong center to buy peanuts and other sweets. :) The van drove us back to our hotel for our drop-off point. We dropped our things and had a shower before heading out for dinner at Lokal.
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| Black and Garlic Rice |
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| Sizzling Bulalo |
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| Kinilaw |
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| Grilled Fish |
We also went to Centrio Mall, I think that was the name of the Ayala-owned mall.
| 11/16/2014 | Day 5: CDO - Iligan | |
| 6:00 AM | Wake-up | |
| 7:00 AM | Pick up from Hotel | |
| 8:00 AM | ETA Iligan City | |
| Tinago Falls | ||
| Mimbalut Falls | ||
| Lunch near Macapagal Mansion | ||
| Maria Cristina Falls | ||
| Dinner in Lokal |
| Expense | Price for whole group | Price per person |
| Van Rental | 3500 | 875 |
| Food | 400 | |
| Pasalubong | 500 |
Unfortunately, I wasn't able to get the contact for our van rental. But, the range for the rental is from 3500-4000 and that's for the whole day including entrances. Anyway, it was still an exhausting day but it was a perfect choice to rent a van instead of going through the hassle of commuting. Based from the roads that we took and have seen, better to get a van. Trust me. I really had a fun time gazing up falls and jumping into waters, yes I know, adventurous indeed. So there you have it, day 5 of my Mindanao Adventure. Next post will be on the famous water rafting activity that CDO is renowned for.
