Busay

Can't still have a good grasp of it # the mighty sun has been playing so elusive since the first of August, had given  Manila daily burst of massive rain, not less than 3 typhoons, torrential/monsoon serious flood BUT!! yesterday 'till today_  the sun has been up and shining !!!! Are you kidding me?? After I had cancelled two scheduled trips for this month, now you're giving me this " beautiful beach weather". Nohurtfeelings. I heard another typhoon is coming, so really I'm just happy to wake-up with the sun beaming at me, which is a rarity now a days.

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I'm just saying.. my last out of town was as old as the last time a whole week the sun continued to show. As far as I can remember, that was like sometime in June this year. Cos after that, it has been all raining and just small peeking of the sun, and the only place I've been to were malls' supermarkets to buy groceries. then stayed home under roof being hammered by the heavy downpour of the rain_everyday!

Sometime in June, we had our short visit of my hometown and before exiting, we decided to eat our lunch at one of the countless waterfalls/river resorts a little bit away from the town.

See how cheap the entrance fees are.

From that opening, we walked and passed some houses, really rural. I enjoyed some rustic scenes like the kid bathing himself in a basin. He didn't care at all about a bigger body of water just across his house which was the resort we were going. Or maybe, he had too much of it already.

Few feet across that little boy in the basin, there was this man made small bridge with water flowing on it.

It wasn't a pass thru bridge where one can walk to reach the other point. It was more it seemed a water container. Unseen from the photo above, there were couples of women washing clothes right at this spot. Making use of the free flowing water. This also served as the entrance of the resort.



From up there, we went down and this what caught us in surprise. One solid massive rock with water flowing happy. For P20 entrance fee, where could you steal such a nature treat, if not in gifted rural town such as Guinayangan Quezon.

We couldn't help ourselves and went straight up to the rock.

The water was coming from the river behind the rock. I wasn't so solved about the staircases. They lessen the rustic appeal of the falls and made them looked  man made. In fairness, they made going around the falls real easy.



Neither the painted stairs appealed to me.



That time, the resort was relatively had just opened for business. We also caught some locals having photo shoot for the beauty contest of their barangay fiesta.

The place spelled nature kiss. We almost forgot why we dropped by there. Not to swim! We didn't bring any swimwear.

But to eat our packed lunch!!! We weren't asked to pay for the cottage since were just there to eat and not to swim. Yah, I looked funny there,haha,



Nothing could beat a nature stop when you're up for a long road trip (like 5-6 hours) back to the tiresome city.

Hits & Misses

I'd say the best things in life are free. And random. The sweetest experiences I had_ mostly came unannounced and happened unplanned. Talk about free spirited people like me, you wouldn't have to wonder.
Ofcourse, a coin has two sides. My randomness is not always a happy ending. My being a snappy traveler also  brought us some random misses, haha.

Okey, I'll share a very graphic example of my randomness. One after-a-rain-noon, we were on our way back to Manila from a short visit of my farfar away hometown. But before we even got out of the town, brother mentioned that we were about to pass by a barangay with a cave he recently visited. In fact he added it was just like 10-15 minutes away a little detour from the main road. My random bell rang so loud, I went ahead to persuade driver husband to entertain the detour, haha. To cut the long convincing scene _  we reached the rural outskirts and all we needed was to change our foot gears cos we would be doing a little hiking.



Not so fast my dear! My ever protected/conservative/opposite of my random- self husband had to make his bylaws speech first as usual. This time with my brother around, he was letting us go without him. He actually not so liking this kind of snappy trip and would only go with us to protect us.



Afterwhich we were ready, but wait.. brother had an issue_ he totally forgot how to get there! wt#@%#!!!

So now we had to look for a local guide. He then went to a house nearby and when he came back, he brought with him our guide___



Meet little Angelito :))) The boy volunteered or was it like he was sent by his mother to guide us to the cave. The boy swore he knew the cave so well it was one of his play areas in the neighborhood. Ahh, ok.

So we followed the little boy leads. He said that it was just very near from the main road where we started the hike. He was so right about the cave not so far. Only this young fellow forgot to warn us that it wasn't going to be as plain as the beginning.







It was not at all obvious in the photos above, but the trail was actually not made easy by the previous rain that day. It was muddy and slippery. Many times, we couldn't hold to anything but to thin twigs only which were not very helpful. I guess the situation limited brother (who was behind the lens) on taking photos of our trail. It wasn't only once that we nearly fell down the river below the hilly muddy road we were walking on. It's good husband never read my blogs. The secret is safe from his worries.



The boy was right, it wasn't that far. Really, just few minutes and difficult muddy trail from the mainroad. Brother was not convinced that it was the cave he was looking for.



The boy insisted that this was the one! Brother was sure_it was not!!

You decide who's right ! This was the cave the boy-guide said it was! haha.



To give you a better perspective of the size of the mouth of the cave_  how do you think I could fit in to enter thaT?? crawl !!! haha.

The boy swore it was a cave and people in their community went in to catch some___... now I forgot what! Not snake, I'm sure of that.



Brother was so sure it wasn't the one. The boy out of embarrassment  ran out of the woods and left us all by ourselves to trek back to the main road. wheeww!!

All ended well in laughter and well as usual as I say to my girls__ charge it to experience!!!

Fiesta 2012

Happy 

Fiesta

Guinayangan

Quezon !!!!

aww, i missed it again :(

see more of my beautiful hometown
 flourishing with eco-tourism potentials
here




or

experience it through my Guinayangan holiday posts :

railroad skates
karnabal
hidden gems around
busay 1
beach paradise
palm trees
pasko sa amin

Rural Skates

I didn't know the existence of a railroad in my own hometown until  I saw the photos of it from my hometown's blog site/ The Guinayangan Republic. I actually haven't ridden a real train running in a real landed railroad yet. The closest I've been were the MRT's in Manila and in other Asian cities I had visited. So during my most recent visit of my hometown I nudged my brother to bring us to the railroad site.

Since it was just a very short visit as usual, I wanted to maximize the time by hitting to see more than one to three destinations at once. With water falls, cave and the railroad in mind, he decided to bring us to one of the scenic barangays in Guinayangan called Danlagan . After the cave and the falls, we begun our rail road trip..

.. riding not on a train but on a rural railroad skates. That railroad was so busy with skates, we experienced a heavy traffic. It's a one way traffic, so we had to wait while the one ahead of us was loading or unloading.

But a skate coming from opposite direction, given that its load was lighter than the other _ the driver had to give way by lifting it off the tracks, waited at the side until the other had passed by, only then that it would be returned to tracks.



Either powered by a gasoline fueled engine or manually run by foot, the "skates" are actually makeshift wooden trolleys. They are intentionally made never heavy for the very purpose stated above.



It's a lot more than just a passenger vehicle. .

The ride was made more enjoyable by the scenic rural scenes we saw in every little barangay we passed by. .left to right and v.v.

elevated and open nipa hut

salon/spa anyone?

 clothes+grains sunbathing

I was particularly mesmerized by this sight..

..as we go nearer, the shape got more vivid..

. .but I got lost when we were actually passing thru it.

My favorite thu' was the vintage railroad bridge which is deserving of a separate post ( I shall..)

We got off at the end of the bridge ( we were the last to get off) with a plan to take the bridge back by foot and would just ride the next skate available at the other end of the bridge.

but we all got shaky by the height of the bridge off the water beneath and was worried about the delay we caused the incoming skates. 

So we rode the same skates that brought us in here to get back to our departure site.

The fare. For that joy ride, it was P50 for five of us (including return).

Well, told ya_ it's more fun to skate in the Philippines ;)

Karnabal

Enchanted Kingdom and Star City came late in my list of local amusement parks here in my 3rd world country. I grew- up amused by annual fiesta's carnival in my rural hometown.
However rural and 7 hours far from Manila, my beloved town, nevertheless is easy to pick-up internet connection just like the rest of the world. So, I'd say_it's not so left behind.

Yet, it's on a happy note to find similar mobile amusement center still being enjoyed by the locals on our town fiesta.

I remember to have my first ferris wheel ride with mother in one of those carnivals of my primitive years.

When I caught a stop ( the ferris wheel stopped on cue when a unit had to unload/load a new set of  passengers) at the uppermost part, floating above all, I would enjoy the eye bird's view of my green town.

Weird attractions like this one also never failed to make my little girl's eyes so wide with amusement.

Nah, I didn't have this kind of balloon, I had those organic round, colored balloons.



Can you spot the little boy and girl in queue? Reminds me so much of me and my brother when we were in the same age, tagged by my mother to give us the best amusement in town.
I miss those days.

Retail Nature Therapy

You know when an urban mom is so under stress and would jump off to the nearest mall, she goes to her favorite shop. purchases a pair of shoes and maybe 2 to 3 tops. . beyond her needs but more as an   "escape from it all" . . I am not like that. I'm not so much into retail therapy.
I have my own retail therapy thu' . . definitely shoes and tops won't answer my need for balance when I'm under stress. I seek for nature therapy. This kind, I categorized it as retail like the retail/shopping therapy most moms do, cos usually it's cheap, if not free and accessible.

I'm quite lucky too to have a rural hometown as my default ground. So green and rural, you could just walk around without a penny in your pocket and you would absorb the same nature bliss one would get from an  out of town trip of  no lesser ( but can be more) than P7k/pax budget. If there's more to it, it's that_ "the best things in life are free".

Aside from my personal therapy, my girls are  happiest when we get to visit my home town.

It's usually very light to trek here. We just go out of the door of our house on our flipflops without anything in our hands.

There are sari-sari stores (local variety store huts), and sure bring some coins for liquids.

Not this kind of liquid thu', unless you are driving a motorcycle and you  need a refill . They are gasoline in bottles, haha.




I bet to my kababayans (townmates) who live here forever, this part of  town is just another street for them. A road they walk on everyday. But to my girls_ it's wilderness, already a little forest for them to reckon with.

Neither I would pretend I'm no longer in awe of the nature abound my town cos I'm supposedly used to them cos I am supposedly its own native child. On contrast, I am as wide eyed as my girls. Growing -up, I rarely had the freedom to reach these hidden nature treasures. Perhaps also because they were all over there everyday, I took them for granted.

Hanging bridges always amaze me. It amazed me more to find one in my own town.

Underneath is a live river, with real flowing water.

Also on this particular hot, arid weekend, we tried to add a little adventure. .  .




We took the challenge to reach a falls by taking a mountain sloped trail on our bare flipflops.

# On second thought, I decided I'll just share it next time cos this one has been too long already, don't you think so?