It was my first time in the strange and exotic (to me anyway) land of Mindanao and apart from an hour and a half delay of our flight, the journey there was fairly smooth.
For our first day, we had managed to find a packaged tour that promised a full day of thrilling adventures. For a mere 2,000 pesos, we had a private van for the day and a filling lunch with our fully paid zipline and white water rafting activities for the day.
Our first stop was the Dahilayan Adventure Park in Bukidnon. It is a two-hour drive from the Cagayan de Oro airport and we passed by the pineapple and corn fields of the Dole plantation. I half-expected to smell the pineapple in the air and I was slightly disappointed when that wasn't the case.
The Dahilayan Adventure Park has three ziplines. The shorter 150m and 320m ones are usually taken together and you get to ride in an almost sitting positions, with you strapped into your harness. This wasn't as scary as I thought it would be since I could actually see where I was heading.
The 840m one, which holds the record of being the longest dual zipline in Asia, is a lot scarier for several reasons. First, you ride superman style, meaning you're on your belly and the only thing holding you up is a large bag hooked onto the zipline itself. And second, the endpoint is so far away, you don't actually see where you're going. I probably screamed for the first 200m but eventually calmed down with the help of the beautiful scenery and the cool and crisp air. By the time I reached the endpoint, I would have been more than happy to go back to the endpoint and start again.
After our heart-stopping ride on the superman zipline, we hopped back onto our van and headed to our hotel, D'Budgetel, in Cagayan de Oro (I highly recommend this hotel if you're looking for an inexpensive yet clean and secure hotel within the city). This is where we met with our guides from the Red Rafts who took us to the rafting endpoint for a filling lunch before we embark on our Advanced course on White Water Rafting.
We took the the advanced course based on the recommendation given to us when we booked our tour. The main difference between the basic and advanced course was that the basic course starts on the halfway point of the advanced course. The degree of difficulty of the course was fairly the same so by paying just a little more, we had more value for our money.
This was, of course, very true. The only downside to taking the advanced course, however, was that the entire course is four to five hours long. By the time we reached the start point of the basic course, we were already bored and we barely paddled anymore. We just went where the water brought us.
As far as the actual scary moments of the ride, only one really stood out. There are times when the guides would ask us if we wanted to do tricks. One of such tricks is where the raft rodeos up stream. Being over-confident as we were (we hadn't tipped over yet before this point), we went ahead with it and we fell over before we even managed to get our raft up in the air like it was supposed to. We all fell off and the current managed to drag me underwater for a good 15 or so seconds. It wasn't life threatening but for a moment, I thought I was actually going to drown. Fortunately, I was able to get back to the surface and another raft fished me out of the water in time for the next rapid.
Overall, the entire day was really fun. I had managed to scratch off two things on my bucket list that day. And yet, it was really tiring as well. We had planned to go to the famed Divisoria night market later that night but we were just way too tired and we had to wake up really early the next day to catch the boat heading to Camiguin. We ended up just eating at the hotel (The Tree House restaurant in the hotel is also highly recommended) and calling it a night.
Looks like you really had fun in Cagayan de Oro and Bukidnon as very obvious in your pictures. I understand, I've been there. It's one of the most unforgettable adventure I ever had.
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