We started day two with a continental breakfast in bed, literally, at seven as we have requested. At eight o'clock AM while we were doing our morning ritual of smoking the tour guide came to let us know that we will be leaving in 5 minutes. So we hurriedly packed our things to bring (camera, extra clothes, bottled water).
A tour van was waiting outside then we left De Loro for underground river experience. We went to fetch three girls in Casa Fuerte, three kilometers away from De Loro, who will join our group tour.
Our tour guide's name is Jouie. He is a native Palaweño so he is very much familiar with the place. The travel time from city to Sabang, where we are going to take a boat to underground, is two hours. After one and a half travel we stopped at Tagabenit. He said that we are scheduled to cruise the underground river at two o'clock in the afternoon and we are just going to be bored if we will go directly to Sabang. So he suggested to try caving at Ugong Rock Adventures.
Ugong Rock is a limestone formed millions of years ago. It is believed that it used to be part of the ocean and after millions of years of waves it forcefully curved/created wonderful limestone structures inside, then the water sea level subsides and voila! We have Ugong Rock!
Ugong Rock is actually being maintained by ABS-CBN Bantay Kalikasan Foundation - it's one of their five community-based tourism initiative project to help people of Puerto Princesa. The Ugong Rock tour guides and facilitators are people of Tagabenit (since the amazing limestone formation is located in their area). In my opinion this is a really nice idea of helping people, instead of donating money create an initiative project that will have a long term sustenance to the people, di ba? Way to go ABS-CBN!
Val all geared up
Jaydee and Jose pro-safety first
For Php 200 you can go caving up to the top and trace your way back into the cave to go down which will take an hour each way. Additional Php 250 if you are going to do zipline on your way down in just 23 seconds. I am not a fan zipline 'coz I have an irrational fear of heights, I am Acrophobic. So I only paid Php 200 and I am willing to take the challenge, back and forth, of whatever they got inside those caves! lol
They called it Ugong Rock because on the entrance of the cave you will hear an "Ugong" sound. It's like the million ocean waves have been recorded by the cave to be heard good for the earth's lifetime.
The guys goofing around. Tree planting project. lol
Spelunking is another term for caving. Spelunkers are what they call untrained and unknowledgeable amateur explorer. Cavers is what you call well experienced people in cave exploring. Spelunking is fun yet tough. Really tough! It would take a lot of strength and guts to love this activity.
60 ft. up! Jaydee spelunking her way up in her maxi dress.
Almost there!
Whew!
My turn b*tches!
Easy for Joseph 'coz he has no weight/gravity issues! lol
We made it up!
Val in between the rocks
And I thought this is going to be our last challenge... not really!
Wooooohhhhhhoooo!! The view!
It took an hour to get on top. How are we gonna go down? We no longer wanna take the same route going down. So we decided to go zip-line! Excuse me, this is not your ordinary zip-line. It's a gravitational zip-line. What made it different from the other zip-line? This has a slope! Others are just a straight fair cable slightly inclined. Ugong has an 80 degrees slope going down. It's really scary.
On the video I took. The zipline guy took him forever to convince me to let go already and go steady and relax. Easy for him to say! lol. And so I closed my eyes and I screamed like it was my last.
Joseph had a pretty much zipline in his life so it's no biggie for him. lol
And then a casualty. Valerie got hit by the metal sling, the next thing I know she was calling my name saying her left eye hurts. So we asked for an ice for cold compress to constrict blood vessels and localize bleeding.
After a couple of smoke. We went back to the van and went to Sabang beach where the lunch buffet is waiting for us! Wooohh!!
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