saturday high

"So listen, touch, and look around - in the air and on the ground. And if you watch all nature's things,
you might just see a fairy's wing."
--Anonymous

i did it again! i did it again!

i went whitewater rafting again. yes, i've just had my second whitewater rafting adventure and it hasn't been a year since i had the first one. so how's that for some summer fun?

whitewater rafting. challenging rapids. cagayan de oro river. easy and hard paddling. happy adventure. wonderful time with friends! woohoo!! high five!!!

i'm tempted to just let the pictures do all the talking but...

last saturday, i got reunited with my p6 friends and with them, i got to navigate through cagayan de oro river's 14 whitewater rapids again. the last time i went whitewater rafting in cagayan de oro, i was with my ids99 gal pals, yoni and haniko. the fee for the adventure then was PhP1200 per head, now it's down to only PhP500. cool deal!


whitewater rafting adventure assembly area
divisoria, cagayan de oro

as early as 7 o'clock, our group was already in divisoria, cagayan de oro city. we -- randz, naoms, kuya eli, ma'am edith, mikmik, ma'am jinx and her twin sons, and i -- were all excited and quite ready for the day's great adventure!


04.28.07 looking ready and just waiting

04.28.07 signing the waiver as if it's a qualifying exam, haha! :-)

04.28.07 we're going, going, going...
from divisoria, our rafting outfitter, cagayan de oro whitewater rafting, inc., took us all the way up to brgy. mambuaya -- the adventure starting point. but first, we made a stopover in macahambus.


04.28.07 macahambus adventure park and us!

04.28.07 3 p6peeps in macahambus: naoms, val, and randz
mambuaya is quite far from cagayan de oro's city proper. but the trip going there is far from boring. as the jeepney goes further uphill and through the narrower country roads, the scenery that unfolds outside the ride is breathtaking.


whitewater rafting adventure starting point
mambuaya, cagayan de oro

when we arrived at our destination in mambuaya, the place was already bustling with activity. there were a lot of other people who decided to also experience whitewater rafting that day. good thing, there's room for everyone there. there was excitement all around and the sight of many other people did not diminish in any way the beauty of the place. there, i really felt that it was a wonderful sunny day -- definitely fit for an awesome adventure with friends!

what fun!!!


04.28.07 wish you were here!
after donning our safety vests and putting on our safety helmets, we were given a brief orientation on the exciting adventure that lay ahead. then, it was time to board the rafts and we soon started our way down the river and paddled through the rapids.

randz, naoms, kuya eli and i shared a raft with our guide, reynold -- if you've seen GMA7's kay susan tayo's feature on whitewater rafting in cagayan de oro earlier this month, you've seen this guy -- yes, he's had his tv exposure! ma'am edith, mikmik, ma'am jinx and the twins boarded another raft with their guide, jund.

despite the dangers of getting the camera wet, i brought the gadget on board our raft. there was no dry bag in sight so i placed it, along with my cellphone, inside an ordinary plastic bag and kept it in my safety vest's pouch. hehehe.


04.28.07 snapshots of us while navigating through calm waters
navigating 12.32 km of cagayan de oro river in a raft and conquering all 14 major rapids (and several minor ones) was exhilarating! from the first to the last whitewater, my friends and i enjoyed the adventure a lot -- as you can see in the pictures, all the good and happy feelings are written on our faces. our whitewater rafting experience was worth all the "mishaps"!

mishap #1
there were times that our guide permitted us to go overboard to happily swim in the river and to allow the relatively strong current to carry us downstream. of course, everytime we were given permission, overboard we went!


04.28.07 weehee!
there's this exciting part where the current directs the swimmer towards a wall of rock. randz gagged going through that part after a swimmer from behind him kicked him and the water pulled him downward -- he went underwater despite the safety vest he was wearing.

fortunately, he survived to tell his story. hehe.

mishap #2
kuya eli fell off the raft as we navigated through one of the rapids. i think he forgot to "lock" his feet. good thing, he was able to rejoin us without bruises and scratches. actually, it was a "haha" moment. as his body was thrown forward, he looked as if he wasn't going to fall all the way but he fell into the water, anyway. nyehehehe... kay nganong nagbinam-i?

i could still hear what naoms said oh-so-amusedly: "one down!"

mishap #3
while i was able to keep my camera dry, my cellphone got accidentally thrown into the water.

i went swimming in the river and survived the exciting wall-of-rock phase with both the camera and my cellphone secured inside the ordinary plastic bag i kept in my vest's front pouch. talk about being relentless and reckless! soon after we all got on board the raft again and felt the urge to take more pictures, i checked my gadgets -- minions, i call them -- and got so pleased that they're still dry after all. yehoo!!! so we took more pictures... posed for the camera... and in my excitement, my arm accidentally swept my cellphone away. the gadget fell where water freely seeped through our raft. yes, my minion went swimming, too! the consequence? both the front panel and the keypad got disengaged from the main frame, lcd panel's wet, battery's wet, internals're most likely wet -- definitely a very wet cellphone!


04.28.07 so what if my phone got wet? ;-P
mishap #4
at one point during the second time we were allowed to swim around, i had to struggle to keep water from going up my nose. i kicked the water hard and in the process, hit something else... hard. i soon had the idea what i hit with my kick when randz, who was swimming near me, shouted out in real pain, "aray! val---, imong nasipaan ang ako!! waaaaa... malumos ko dinhi sa kasakit!!!"

"ay, sorry gud. wala jud nako tuyo-a. hala ka, sorry. sorry jud."

not missing a beat, naoms said, "decide unsa'y buhaton, randz, scrambled or sunny-side up?"

i said, "taymsa. ngano diay? pila diay ang nadisgrasya? isa or duha? pwede man tingali scrambled ang isa tapos sunny-side up ang isa pa." hihihi...

randz told us to stop making everyone laugh. but he was actually the one who started laughing. and laughter is contagious, you know. besides, pain or no pain, it was a laugh trip!


04.28.07 hmmm... rafting models?
there were other "mishaps"-turned-funny moments. for instance, we got stalled in one of the major rapids because one of us forgot to paddle with the rest. instead of heeding the "forward" command given out by our guide, randz just kept shouting "woohoo" as our raft encountered the turbulent waters. result? the rapids got the better of us and our raft hit a rock -- hard!! all five of us in the raft were thrown forward and randz and kuya eli almost fell off. had their bodies left the raft that time, it would have been a second fall for kuya eli. hahaha!!!

most of the 14 rapids already have names: makabundol (so named because of all the rocks there and all the potential risks of bumping into them). washing machine (so named because the most fun manoeuvre in that part of the river is to make the raft go spinning). chris' drop (so named because a guy named chris fell there). pasyon sa dalit (just because. the guide did not explain why). kiss the wall (so named because the most likely mishap in this part of the river is hitting the wall). brave's way (so named because the other way is fit for the not so brave ones). bernie (so named because a guy named bernie lives nearby. in fact, we saw bernie sitting on the riverbank soon after we passed by!). paolo santos (so named because paolo santos fell there). surprise (so named because of the "surprising" nature of the rapids in that part of the river). amusing names.


04.28.07 our river adventure's final pitstop: kabula, cagayan de oro
after our rafting adventure, we -- mikmik and the twins, naoms, kuya eli, and i -- went wallclimbing. actually, the wallclimbing activity wasn't part of the plan. just the same. like our whitewater rafting experience, it sent our adrenaline rushing and we had fun, fun, fun!!


04.28.07 one challenge after the other: down the river then up the wall
noooooooooooooo, wallclimbing made my arms hurt!

i told naoms that next time she should remind me not to go wallclimbing after a 3-hour paddling/rafting adventure. it's too much for the arms.

a rafting adventure should be followed by another rafting adventure, not a wallclimbing session. hehe.


p.s.

(1) account of my first whitewater rafting adventure in cagayan de oro is here.

(2) my phone's still working. however, i'm experiencing problems with the navigation key as a result of the gadget's unfortunate encounter with water... here's hoping i'll be able to fix it on my own.

(3) some of the photos that appear in this post are from kuya eli's camera.

(4) dili lagi ko laagan. samoka sab ninyo oi.

down the river and back to reality

"Keep some souvenirs of your past,
or how will you ever prove it wasn't all a dream?"
--Ashleigh Brilliant

"easy forward!"

"lock your feet!"

"forward!"

these are the commands that still keep ringing in my good head. it has been more than a month since i made my "whim trip" and joined my friends in navigating 12.5 kilometers of the cagayan de oro river... and i'm able to blog about it only now. ha.

19th of august 2006. my sleepless self left diliman on a taxi cab at about 3am. i swung by shaw boulevard to fetch my friend yoni and her "accidental" pet cockroach (which, by the way, we managed to drop off somewhere, haha). then, we headed for makati to fetch athan. from makati, the taxi driver drove us to the manila domestic airport where we caught the first flight bound for cagayan de oro.


08.19.06 travel buddies: athan. yoni. val.
after we got off the plane, we took a taxi ride and met up with our oh-so-hyper friend (and crazy master) haniko in divisoria, cagayan de oro. haniko was more than pleased (read: excited) to see yoni again and she was genuinely and pleasantly surprised to see me -- she looked like a very happy jack-in-the-box! (pardon me for not being able to think of a better analogy!)

with my trip being a mere product of my whim, i wasn't expected to be anywhere in mindanao that day. haniko had no inkling that i'd be joining "the adventure" after all. how could she when weeks before i've already put my foot down and vehemently told everyone that i won't be home 'til october. ho hum, so much for trying to be firm about my decisions. hihi.


08.19.06 reunion of the witches!: val. yoni. "master" haniko.

"the adventure"? let's call it white water rafting. as early as february 2005, haniko already got it planned for us. well, it took us busy witches more than a year to realize the plan...

in divisoria, we waited for rex and his red rafts. rex is haniko's officemate and the operations manager of cagayan de oro river tours corporation. we also waited there for yoni's mommy and younger brother anjik.


08.19.06 photo ops in DD divisoria, cagayan de oro :)
when the "red rafts team" finally arrived, we said our hi's and hello's and signed our respective waivers. nah, don't ask me what was written in the document i signed... to me, it wasn't a waiver -- it was actually a talent contract. ha ha. someday, you'll see my face (along side with yoni's, athan's, anjik's and, of course, haniko's!) gracing one of those rafting ad tarps in cagayan de oro! ang kapal noh?


08.19.06 pre-adventure ritual
from divisoria, yoni, athan, anjik, haniko, and i, joined the "red rafts team" in going to our whitewater rafting adventure's start-off point. we boarded the jeepney and headed for mambuaya, where our day's big adventure awaited us.


08.19.06 having fun in the jeepney!
the riverscape that we saw in mambuaya was breathtaking. the sun was up and dark clouds were nowhere in sight. it was such a beautiful day!!! we stole some time gawking at the scenery and had our pictures taken in front of the cdo white water rafting adventure welcome marker.


08.19.06 adventure marker and the cagayan de oro river
after putting on our rafting helmets and safety vests, all of us waded in the shallow part of the river for our on-the-spot whitewater rafting orientation. we were introduced to the yellow paddles (yoohoo, paddles in my fave color!) and were shown how to properly hold and use them. the guides demonstrated what we had to do when "forward," "backward," "lock your feet," "high five," and "s-paddle" commands are called out.

then, the time came for us to go down the mighty cagayan de oro river. yoni, athan, anjik, haniko, and i got on a raft with our very able and friendly guides, ryan and steve. two of the other members of the "red rafts team" were on another raft with a set of "singkit" guests from manila who had a very cute little boy with them. the rest of the team took a third raft and served as the "rescue guys on standby".

eventhough my thighs ended up badly sunburned, i enjoyed the adventure a lot! it was fun going through the rapids, shouting our hearts out, and waving our paddles in the air with our woohoo's. we covered a 12.5-kilometer stretch of the cdo river, conquered 14 whitewater rapids and not once did our raft overturn -- yes, we're such good paddlers! haha. (for the record, i did not make that one up. our guide ryan actually commented that we're strong paddlers. heehee. had we been lalampa-lampa, our very bodies would have been thrown off the raft and could have hit the big, big rocks. ewww.)

where my rafting skills are concerned, the easiest command to follow is "lock your feet" which meant securing the feet on the sides of the big raft so that nobody will be easily thrown off the water ride. one very enjoyable thing to do with the paddle is the "s-paddle" which meant splashing water towards a target (read: another raft). the "high five!", on the other hand, is the most spontaneous thing one could do with the paddle right after a whitewater is conquered. this involves the act of raising the paddle high up in the air, in celebration and pure exhilaration.

and there's definitely more to the exhilaration and the excitement caused by paddling through the challenging rapids! our whitewater rafting adventure wasn't just about successfully hitting the water and coming out of it alive and in one piece. it was also about shared experiencing. my friends and i worked as a team, witnessed together different facets of nature's pristine beauty in cagayan de oro, and saw what life's like along the riverbanks (cagayan de oro on one side and bukidnon on the other). if you come to think of it, an adventure like that would lose some rewarding joy if there were no lovely sceneries to behold and genuine friends to experience it with!

our rafting adventure ate up only about 3 to 4 hours, but it seemed longer than that for me... perhaps because i enjoyed it so much. the sensory rush one feels while going through the entire adventure makes one lose track of time.


08.19.06 post-adventure photosession
more than 12 kms and 14 rapids after: yey, we did it!

08.19.06 adventure aftermath
back in the jeepney for the ride home...
so where are our whitewater rafting adventure pics? ask haniko! i'll update this article, post our action pics, and share those photos where you can see our group in full rafting gear (with helmets, vests, etc.)... once i get the remaining image files from haniko. weehee!


08.19.06 adventure aftermath: one last set

p.s.
(1) photos used in this article are courtesy of athan, yoni, val and haniko.

(2) here is haniko's account (complete with rafting photos) of her first whitewater rafting adventure in cdo.