Catchlyts

Two days of scouring Cebu City for interesting finds, we see ourselves restaurant hopping instead. So on the third day, with little information on hand and for the first time, empty stomachs, we give in to our rural cravings. We hop in a bus bound for Badian early the next morning to visit the Kawasan Falls.

Kawasan Falls is approximately a 3-hour bus ride from the city. From the South Terminal, ask around for buses going to the waterfall. Better to specifically tell your conductor before getting in a bus. If not, you could end up 3 towns away from the supposed stop like we did.

Get off at Barangay Matutinao. If you catch a glimpse of a small triangular shaped church while you’re speeding along the South Coastal National Highway, scream at the top of your voice because you just missed your stop.

Church at Kawasan Falls

If you plan to come on a holiday or a weekend, I highly suggest on skipping on the guide. Guides, at times, are very helpful. You get to your destination faster, local info on the place and a light on your path when it’s dark. But on some occasions, they’re just walking Meralcos charging you for every step in the trek, kerosene in their lamps and for their rates, even their breaths in the small talk you have very little interest in.

So just wait for other tourists familiar with the waterfall. A lot of locals frequent Kawasan Falls so you can just tag along and make new friends. If you’ve been traveling for a while, you know it pays to know a bit of PR. It’ll save you at least P100 (the rate each of the guides asked for but of course, we haggled).

The 30-min trek is pretty easy since there’s a coconut tree-lined trail, signs along the road and for the really locationally challenged, houses with people you can ask for directions.

Two foot bridges away and near the souvenir shop selling Kawasan Falls shirts, pay the P10 entrance fee.

Go under the adobe bridge and after another foot bridge, you get to trod on a cemented road that leads you to a shocking line of unsightly rooms for rent on the left and the cottages on the right. The place looks like a crudely developed resort complete with awfully tasting pricey food and restrooms they manage to affix by the side of the mountain.

I know the facilities are there for the comfort of visitors like me but nature looks best when untouched. Comfort turns into discomfort when a ride in a raft costs P300, rent in a cottageP300, a vest P50, and food from P80 to P200. Even if you eat in the restaurant, you still need to pay for the cottage.

Despite all the distraction, seeing the first and the biggest of the three-tiered waterfall is breathtaking. It has been raining all day so cool fresh water splash from the rock formation and into the turquoise colored pool. Three twenty feet long rafts they maneuver with ropes all over the place are in the pool, regardless of the public notice dated March 26, 2008: “…Prohibits the following activities in the Kawasan Falls area: a. jumping from the falls, b. operation of rafts.”

An uphill climb for fifteen minutes will take you to the second falls but we don’t attempt to go since the last trip going back to the city is 4:30 PM. I was able to catch the rates of one of the cheap hotels in the Kawasan Falls: