Dumaguete 2: SCUBA Boogaloo

Our first day of SCUBA certification was fine, if somewhat less thrilling and more pun-filled than we had expected.  The day was taken up with rigorous study of the ins and outs of diving, by which I mean we watched videos and took quizzes on the videos.  Among the PADI Open Water Certification video features:

• Stunningly well-preserved early '90s visual effects recreated with computers in 2002.
• Continual references to equipment we would not be using and test dives that we had not paid for and would not be experiencing.
• A comic relief mime who made us all extremely nervous -- presumably, after falling over in swim fins, failing to plan his dive, improperly disassembling his equipment, and eating a peanut he found in his toolkit, this mime died a horrible death of the bends.  Educational!
• Amazing facts given as bumpers between segments, including "Fact: divers are 'under' achievers" and "Fact: divers are always happy."  BONUS FACT: this "always happy" business is an effect of nitrogen narcosis.  Laffs ahoy!

Another fascinating point of this class, which was taken at a location I will not disclose here: our teacher's name was "Snoopy."  Snoopy was a very nice guy, though a bit hard to refer to in conversation with a straight face.

Day two of diving involved some actual diving, and it was just as magical as the video made it out to be.  Most of the equipment didn't fit, but Snoopy reassured us with helpful information such as, "But it's OK."  We soldiered on through our first dive, descending to just a few meters, but having a grand old time.  Education without speaking presented a unique challenge, but Prof. Snoopy was pretty good with gestures; the impetus of "pay very close attention to what I'm telling you or you might die" is a pretty neat pedagogical trick that I may have to parlay into the English classroom someday.

On our second dive, Jenn was unable to breathe correctly out of her regulator, and Snoopy offered to mend the problem by "taking a break."  When the equipment had not magically fixed itself in  a few minutes, Snoopy took charge of the situation, announcing that we were finished for the day.  Jenn and I protested gently, saying that we would still like to dive, but the mask and regulator had to be fixed first.  He would have none of it, though; something we had learned about the culture of the Philippines at this point was that things could either be "Okay" or "Not Okay."  Riding on top of a Jeepney up a mountain, barreling through town on a tricycle without seatbelts, all of this was "Okay" unless something bad happened.  Snoopy evidently took our protestations that Jenn couldn't, y'know, breathe as a protest that things were "Not Okay," and so everything was off.  He led us out of the water and we took off all of our gear that we had just struggled into 10 minutes before.

Now we were presented with a difficult dilemma.  We still had to complete our third day of dive training to earn our certification, and now we would have to make up half of Day Two in addition to our other required dives.  And now that we had determined that Snoopy was perhaps not the best teacher in the world and used some somewhat suspect equipment, it would be a feat to get ourselves to trust him enough to even get ourselves into the water.  On the other hand, we had already invested some money and time into diving, and the first half of the day had been so much fun!  What were we to do?

Fortunately, I solved this problem in my characteristically dynamic manner: by smacking my head into a TV.

Thus hastening my transformation into Harry Potter.

This, coupled with the fact that we decided to attend our guest house's Free Oysters Night (incidentally, "free" is one of the words words to precede "oysters"), the decision got pretty much made for us.  We remain uncertified.  The next time we have the opportunity, we'll take the course again, but this time we'll 1. confirm that the instructor's equipment is in good working order, and 2. not study with someone named for a comic strip character.

In the meantime, we'll just have to find something else to do in spots like this.  Ho-hum.

Since this post is a little short on photos, I'll include this gem found on the pet shop in front of our guest house that apparently specialized in birds:

Quite an endorsement!

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.