Blueapple13: Dared the Seven Falls

Bacolod Trip
[May 11-12, 2013]

It was roughly about 6:45 in the morning when we touched down at Bacolod-Silay Airport. My friends and I decided to go straight to Mambukal Resort located in Murcia, Negros Occidental. The only available mode of transportation we found at the airport was the taxi cab. Negotiation was quick enough because they had a fixed rate going to the resort at Php 1,200. So off we go! And since it was still early in the morning the ride went on smoothly and we enjoyed the view so much--what with Mt. Kanlaon in the distance.

Anyway, after 30 minutes or so..here we are! The place was packed because it was a Saturday. Lot's of families prefer to spend the weekends here. Mambukal resort has swimming pools and hot springs. They even have a sulfur pool steaming with the strong odd smell that sulfur has. Of course, it's not open for swimming. For those who want to spend the night, the resort also offers cottages. But we already booked ourselves in a hotel in the city. We just wanted to take on the 7 waterfalls challenge for this day. Before that, we needed to have our breakfast first. Mambuka resort has a lot of food stalls to choose from. We chose..

Yup! Their breakfast meals were enough to get us started. As soon as we finished eating, we changed into our trekking outfits and looked for our guide to the 7 falls.

Trekking starts in 5....4....3.....

2....1!!!!

Just a few minutes into our adventure and we suddenly found ourselves in the middle of the forest.

That hanging bridge is no longer used due to safety concerns. I forgot where it leads to. Nevertheless, it would've been a real adventure to go up there and experience the view from the top. When we passed the hanging bridge, it took several minutes before we finally had a glimpse of the first of the seven falls.

Like all of mother nature's wonders, the falls was beautiful. The water is deep said our guide and guests are not encouraged to take a dip especially when they don't provide life jackets.

So we just had our picture taken for keepsake. We continued on in search of the second falls.

Oh and suddenly here we are. Behind us in this photo is the second falls. They installed metal railings to prevent anyone from trying to get in the water. Huge rocks could fall anytime on anyone who dares to swim under the falls. This falls is for your eyes only.

Again, a photo to remind us how beautiful this place is.

From the first going to the second falls, we felt like we had so much fun and we enjoyed the trek. But when the climb got steeper and the trail got harder, we realized this wasn't what we signed up for. When I thought about doing this, I really didn't think it was going to be this hard. I never realized that we needed to climb steep walkways-- where you only hold on to rocks and twigs (if they are strong enough) in order to go up. My friends got the same reaction as I did. Ooops! Sorry friends..but we're in this together right?! Hahahaha! My friend's boyfriend even asked, "I thought we were going to Bacolod to relax..is this what you call relax?" That's him asking almost out of breath, tired and sweaty from the heat and non-stop trekking. Haha! We knew he was just kidding and we knew he was as tired as we are too. Good thing our guide said we could rest for a while--time to catch our breaths and replenish our buckets of sweat with water. This activity is definitely not for the weak of heart (and body). Few minutes passed and we're back on track. We were so glad to see..

The third waterfalls!!!!!! Both the second and the third falls are closed for swimming. Our guide said, when the ground is soft, rocks and other debris might fall in the water. Thus, the warning sign.

Furthermore, according to our guide, the 4th falls can no longer be seen. It is now covered by boulders of rock and other debris that fell during a landslide. This happened when a strong typhoon hit Negros.

Suddenly we're halfway there, or so we thought. We kept asking our guide how far it is going to the next falls and a minute or two after that we ask again on how minutes it would take us to reach our next destination. We just can't wait to finish this surprisingly long and tedious trek.

It sure wasn't easy getting from one falls to the other. The scorching heat of the sun didn't help much either. Refer to the squint and grimace/smile of the people in this photo. But we believed in ourselves enough to convince (ourselves) that we can finish this. Plus, I mean, it's too late to turn around and go back right?! So forward march here we go! And just as we did...we saw this...

Waaaah! let's run for our lives!!! Oh but when you look at it closely, it's already dead. You can even see ants feasting on its head. Poor snake. But on the other hand, PHEW! Quite a relief! The thought of a snake lying in front of us gave us a little change of perspective and renewed adrenaline rush. Now were just excited and energized to get to the next falls.

That's the view of the 5th leading to the 6th waterfalls.

Our guide said we can take a dip here but we decided to take our dip at the 7th falls. So pictures only and off we go again to our last falls. I felt so relieved when we were finally trekking towards the last waterfalls. So I asked our guide about how many minutes it would take us to reach the 7th, and he answered: 30 mins!