Jumping, Swimming and Sliding at Kawasan Falls

On our drive to Kawasan falls I realized just how tired I was after a 4:45 a.m. wake up and long boat ride from Bohol to Cebu. All I wanted to do was go back to bed, but we still had a long day ahead of us. When we arrived at the tour meeting spot we got a helmet, life jacket, water bottle, and a snack before hopping in a vehicle provided by the tour. First we stopped at a presentation area where a video told us about what we were doing and safety precautions. We were going canyoneering which is a mixture of hiking through canyons, jumping into water, sliding on natural slides and swimming.

When were ready to go we walked across the street and found out that we were going on a superman zipline! We had also done this a few days ago at a zipline park, a superman zipline is when you lie on your stomach in the harness so you are facing the ground during the zipline. It was extra cool though because two harnesses were attached to each other so you could go side by side with someone else. I went with my dad and Rylee and my mom were on the zipline next to us, it was extremely fun and we were so high.

After the zipline we took a long hike down steep, uneven and slanting steps, by the end of the stairs my legs felt like jelly! That’s when I found out about the 3 hour hike ahead of us. At the bottom we were rewarded with a beautiful view of a waterfall with amazing turquoise colored fresh water.

We were all sweating and exited to swim in the gorgeous water, it was ice cold which made it very refreshing. After swimming across the cold water pond we had to jump off the edge of the pond into another pond farther down. I did not enjoy it but I had no choice because it was the only way down.

Next we got to hike through the canyon past gorgeous water falls, we also climbed rocks and trudged through water. At first I fell far behind our tour guide, but as the hike went on I started to keep pace with him. At one point in the hike we got to a natural slide where our tour guide showed us how to go down safely, at the end of the slide it dropped off before the water so we went flying off it was really fun but also a bit painful because it was not quite smooth.

We continued the hike until we reached the next cliff jumping spot, we could either jump off from five meters or eight meters. My mom and I choose five although I did not want to do it at all, Rylee and my dad went for eight meters. After we had jumped we came across small food stalls on the cliff side where we got two delicious chicken kababs to share.

Our next stop was the Tarzan swing where we climbed up to a ledge above the water and held on to the swing’s handle. Then we jumped and tried to hold on as long as possible and when we let go we went flying into the water, it was amazing! We did this twice because we enjoyed it so much.

As we neared the end of the hike we came to a huge water fall that was so beautiful and we got to swim behind the waterfall! One water fall was so small that we were not allowed to jump, instead we had to fall backwards into the water below. Then we got to dive through the water fall, I never thought I would get to do that. Farther down we got to do another Tarzan swing.

The last stop was a huge fresh water area with a water fall pouring into it, we got to swim around and look at the waterfall. This waterfall was larger and we were not allowed to go to close because of the strong currents. As we were leaving our tour guide pointed out a whole tree full of fruit bats! If I had not looked closely I would have thought they were just leaves because we were quite far from the tree. Fruit bats are the largest bats in the world, their wingspan can reach up to 6.5 feet long and they are mainly herbivores but sometimes eat small insects.