Saturday, November 23, 2019

Palawan Trip | Day 2: Underground River, Ugong Rock & Kitu Kito Firefly Watching

Underground River and Firefly watching are our activities for Day 2.

But before that, we had to have our fill for this long trip.

Good thing is that Ala Amid, our hotel, offers a free buffet breakfast. 😃👍



May swimming pool din beside the dining tables. Kung wala siguro kaming itinerary eh nagswimming na kami. Haha


We were fetched from the hotel around 7:50 AM and arrived at the wharf for Underground River after 2 hours (with one CR break in between).

And waited for our group to be called, our tour guide does everything that's needed for us.


We are not on a private tour anymore so we'll have this Day 2 with other tourists.


But since we are a big group, we're still divided into 2 so kami pa rin ang magkakasama. Haha



Macaque Monkeys are everywhere when we arrived at the Puerto Princesa Subterranean River National Park.

Just be mindful of your belongings as these monkeys might grab it from your hands or bags. I'm not saying that this photo below is a monkey, I'm trying to say to be mindful of your belongings like what this lady below is doing. 😆


Before we embark, we were oriented to stay quiet as we go inside the cave as bats use their sounds to communicate.


We were given this device which we can listen to as we commence our tour.


Everything we see inside the cave is explained in the audio, bad thing is that I played it a minute late and made me confused which ones is it referring to as we toured the cave.

I stopped it in the end and preferred to listen to our tour guide/boatman who speaks once in a while when naming some rock formations as we pass by.


I'm not going to bombard this post with photos of the Underground river as you may have seen it already from the web.

It is best to experience and see it personally be amazed of the rock formations inside the cave.

The tour lasted 45 minutes.

The earphones we used to listen to the audio were given to us na rin. For hygienic purpose maybe? And remembrance na rin. Haha

At may pabaon pang amoy wiwi ng mga paniki after.

What's important to me is that there's a comfort room in the park. 😆

We came back to the wharf around 11:00 AM to have our lunch and as usual, buffet pa rin! Kain pa more!


And since our second activity, firefly watching will be at night, we have our afternoon to spend to something else.

Since we are not on a private tour, the activity that we'll do in the afternoon depends on the majority.

Our choices are either the Mangrove Paddle Boat Tour or the Ugong Rock Adventures.


Given that most of us are youngsters in the tour, Ugong Rock won.

We arrived there after 1:00 PM.


There's a short orientation and presentation before we began caving.


It should have been a short one, but millenials as we are, there were lots of pictorials everywhere, pose dito, pose doon, which made the caving longer. 😅




Pero itong mga 'to hindi na pictorial. Totohanan na 'to. Hahaha



Good thing is game din yung parents ng mga kasama namin and it made the experience more fun, our laughter is echoing.

Kahit hindi mo kilala makitawa ka pa rin kasi matatawa ka talaga.

One prerequisite to reach the peak is we'd have to be harnessed to climb one part of the cave, I think that's the highlight of the activity aside from the zip line offered at the top, but the experience is short.

Hands down to these two who surpassed the climbing part as well :)
I wasn't able to try the zip line dahil hindi ako pinayagan ni auntie. 😗

Kaya photo op na lang ulit sa taas.


And so we'd have to cave back again. Lol


Buti na lang din at hindi ako nag-zip line dahil mabubuking talaga ako kapag ginawa ko yun dahil dinaanan na lang namin pauwi yung mga nagzip line naming kasamahan. 😅

We traveled back to our hotel to wash up and rest as we wait for the evening.

We arrived at Kitu-KiTo D'Makarios Firefly Watching Place quarter to 7:00 PM where we had our buffet dinner first as they play a presentation of the place.




And then we embark to watch fireflies.

The surroundings were very dark.

Those were the fireflies taken from James' camera.
And as we started our boat ride, we saw a shooting star!

It's not that it was my first time, I've watched a meteor shower before, but it made the experience more memorable since it was unexpected.

The night sky was so clear that even the smallest stars you can see.


Actually I saw more stars than the fireflies. Lol!

I was expecting that fireflies will fly past us but no, we've had to look at the mangrove trees beside the river and there were different trees as well so not all that we've passed by have fireflies on it.

I have high anticipation of the plankton as well, but too bad I can't see them shine when I touched the water (napagalitan pa ako ni auntie dahil nilublob ko yung kamay ko sa tubig).

The boatman is kind enough to show it with his paddle under water, and that's the only time I saw it shine. No more.

Not the experience that I was anticipating, but maybe because of the weather? (Although it did rain on the afternoon as we were traveling back to our hotel).

Nonetheless, it was nice and the people from the place were nice and bubbly as well, that's all I can say. The other firefly watching place that our companions was referring to is under rehabilitation kaya kami napunta dito, so yeah, maybe I'll try some other place next time.

Parang yung shooting star tuloy ang naging highlight ng experience ko dito. Hahaha

And that concludes our Day 2 Palawan Trip~

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