Dumaguete: More Fun Than Falling On Slippery Rocks

Dumaguete, our next destination in the Philippines, is just a short taxi ride from Bontoc.  This taxi ride is followed by an extremely long bus ride, which is then followed by another taxi ride, an hour-long flight, and a final taxi ride.  It's not as small a country as one might think, the Philippines.  Dumaguete is a charming city that possesses a quiet, relaxed, coconut-heavy dignity not easily captured on film.

Having spent the past week or so resting and recovering from our subterranean adventure, we were all set to embark on another exciting, action-packed excursion, after only a brief period of mental and physical preparation.

We'd learned our lesson from Sumaguing Cave; from here on out we would stick to physical activities of a level of intensity somewhere between "pinball" and "Facebooking."  It was important not only for our level of fun, but for our readiness for the next day's scuba lessons, that we pick an excursion that wouldn't leave us too terribly tired out.  Luckily, our guesthouse in Dumaguete offered a trip to Casaroro Falls that was graded as "Easy to Medium."  Man, it's like they knew us!  Y'know, and then decided that we really, really like stairs for some reason.

The guide had warned us at the top of the stairs (which was a Jeepney ride up the mountains in the first place) that, due to the recent typhoon, the path to the waterfall was somewhat damaged, and consequently, we would need a guide to show us the way.  Did I mention that the Casaroro Falls Tour was supposed to take "about two hours"?

"Damaged" didn't begin to cover it.  It was like frolicking through the postapocalypic ruins of a jungle that was already plentiful with ruins.  There were remnants of a nice concrete path crushed into rubble with twisted strands of rebar splayed everywhere.  We scrambled up creaky bamboo ladders and squeezed between jagged rocks and rotting tree trunks.  A wide creek ran beside us.  "Maybe this is the waterfall," we both thought hopefully.

After the rocks grew more slick and the acrobatics required of us more dramatic, Jenn had decided to stop and have a rest.  I soldiered on, reassuring myself that this was only somewhat like the time we almost plummeted to our deaths in a cave.  Then, of course, the guide instructed us to take off our shoes and begin vaulting across the river.

This is usually where one's life flashes before their eyes, but since most of my life has been spent playing video games, I just couldn't stop thinking about how many oxen I killed while fording rivers in "Oregon Trail."

In the end, we came to many excellent, insightful conclusions about the Philippines, but the only one we can remember now is that they should fire whoever's been grading the difficulty levels of their tours, or at least stop grading it on the Batman scale.