Pagsanjan Falls

Took a day trip to the province of Laguna. It's about a 2.5 hour drive from Manila. Left early in the morning so that we could make our way up to the Pagsanjan Falls. Arranged our travel plans through Pagsanjan Falls Lodge and Resort. They are located right on the river bank in the town of Pagsanjan. This is the view from the balcony. The boatmen are getting ready to take us up the river. 

Just before our departure. We got our life vests and helmets. The kids endured the long trip in the car and were ready to hit the water.

I rode with Toby and Micah, Joe rode with Chase and Caleb, and the two sisters got to sit together. Each traditional wood canoe also had two boatmen to help us on our journey.

Most of the trip is fairly calm where there's time to enjoy looking at nature. We saw (one) cow, some turtles, iguanas, and monkeys. 

Talahib Falls is the first waterfall we saw on our way up the river. It's pretty small right now since we haven't hit the major rainy season yet. There are some impressive cliffs along the narrow river. You really feel like you're on a Nat Geo Wild TV show. 

We took a short pit stop to enjoy the first waterfall. The boys really liked riding in the canoes. The long car ride was quickly a distant memory.

Since we started our trip early in the morning, we made our way up to the falls without seeing many other people on the river. It felt like we were a small exploration crew making our way through the Amazon.

We made it to the main falls in about an hour. The weather was great and we didn't have a drop of rain the entire day. I've read that the water can be pretty cold during certain parts of the year, but it felt like room temperature even at the falls. 

 The highlight of the trip was being pulled under the falls on this bamboo raft. We went right through into the cave on the other side. 

Happy to check off Pagsanjan Falls on our list of places to visit near Manila. Awesome to share the experience with the Yi's. 

Here's a video clip of the boatmen at work. They maneuvered us up through the river along these rocky areas. They were really impressive. It would be impossible for us to do this on our own. It was also fun coming back down "shooting the rapids".