Davao Wild Adventure

Actually, another major reason I haven't blogged in ages was because of the Davao trip the DH and I took near the end of November. And boy, did we have a lot of fun there! And took a lot of photos too! So, I'm sharing them in batches. First on the line will have to be the white water rafting trip down Davao River!
The outfit that offered the Davao Wild Water Adventure is based at the Crocodile Park, so our cousins Duboy and Lilai dropped us off there for our 8am assembly time.
It turned out we were the first to show up, but we had to wait for the cashier to open shop. While we were waiting for her, we got the chance to look around the park, at least the area nearest the entrance. The DH just had to take the obligatory photo with Pangil,(Fang in the dialect) the 18ft resident dinosaur. The last time we were at the park, Pangil was submerged in his pool and we didn't get any decent photos...so a photo-op with him was on the DH's agenda. Can you tell that the DH is a fan? :)

The DH was happy to find that the pool was being refilled and so we were able to take some pretty good pix of Pangil.

This bird was not amused by my huge grin at all,lol!

I'm guessing this guy is not a morning person.

We flagged a park employee to take our pix here. And from her, we learned that the croc in Pangil's pool wasn't him after all. :( Pangil had apparently broken his tail and was being kept under wraps while he recuperates. In the meantime, he has his understudy standing, er, lying in. :) The park lady says the stand-in is not as wide as Pangil, but is longer than he is, so I guess he's not a push-over either.

The cashier finally arrived, and while the DH paid up, I took more photos. This one was of the skeleton of the local dugong, or the manatee.

Also took some shots of the sail-fin lizards sun-bathing in their pen. The DH's cousin, Anoy Nene, loves reptiles...so I tagged him when I posted this pic on facebook.

After getting our receipt,we went back to the rafting office and got fitted for our safety gear.

We were instructed to leave everything that we didn't want to get wet in the lockers, so the next photos (until we got back to camp) were from the outfit's photographer.

We had to wait for the other people to arrive so we could get the orientation lecture.

This guy came on his own. We later found out that Amer was in Davao to visit his Filipina wife and daughter. He's an engineer in Dubai, and he was a pretty nice guy too.

This was part of the all-girls team. The girl at the extreme left, we later discovered, was a TV host. Not overly fond of local showbiz, we didn't recognize her, hehe!

This is the whole group,(including the guides, we all filled up 7 rafts) watching the orientation video. The DH and I were pretty giddy with excitement here. Some of the other 

(kikay) participants weren't as thrilled: some fairly turned ashen when we saw footage of raging waters and rafts capsizing!LOL!

Our ride to the put-in site.

Some souvenir shots before we all trooped into our rides

When we arrived at the put-in site (about an hour travel from the city proper), we were instructed how to don our gear. 

This is our rafting group: the DH and I, Amer, and the 3 others who worked for a foundation.

This is us with our river guide, Wilbert, when he was giving us final instructions. I just look worried here, but I wasn't really!

After our final briefing, we headed a little way downstream so we could practice falling out of the raft and hauling each other back-in. Wilbert said if anybody balked at this stage, they wouldn't be allowed to continue.

This is Amer hauling the DH back into the raft.

Initially I wore some goggles to keep my contacts safe, but they kept fogging up, so I ditched them. I had no intention of remembering nothing but white fuzz during the whole trip!

This is us heading downstream after completing our practice.

 We had even rescued 2 people after their raft capsized at what the guides called "kiss the wall". They were able to return to their raft when we regrouped here.

Then we had to wait for a couple of the rafts that had gotten stranded among some rocks upstream.

And the fun begins....

We stopped at this tiny beach for our lunch break.

The guides putting out our packed lunch.

We had rice with grilled pork chop, chicken adobo, 1 hard-boiled egg,a banana and 1 mint candy for dessert.

The food wasn't that bad, really...just wacky shots. :)

The currents twirled our rafts round and round!

This is Atoy, the rafting director for the day. He kayaked in his little vessel that was designed for rolling in the rapids. He says once you've tried riding one of these babies, you'll find the bigger canoes and kayaks boring!

High-five!

 Amer flashing a huge grin!

When we reached this stretch of the river, we were allowed to leave the rafts so we could "drift".

drifting was fun! and a welcome chance to cool off after all that rowing!

The DH is at the right background, doing the defensive swim: facing downstream with the feet up (so they don't get trapped in the rocks). During orientation, Atoy had told us that swimming freestyle had no place in the river, so the guy in the foreground had not paid attention! lol!

This was the infamous "washing machine"...notorious for capsizing the most number of rafts! We passed through unscathed, yay!

 We took a little side-trip into this crevice in the mountain for a photo-op. :)

Another pit stop on the river for a short rest.

The steep cliffs lining this river section were awesome. Some of the other rafters cooled off in the water.

Wilbert, our guide, let the DH try the kayak during this break. We've tried sea kayaking around Danjugan Island before, but the DH found it harder on the river, probably since he had to struggle with the undercurrents...and since one pull on his oars with his powerful arms makes the poor kayak turn 360 degrees, lol!

By the time we arrived at the pull-out site, some 2 hours and a half hours after our put-in, my poor arms were ready to fall off, lol. My ultra-fit DH, on the other hand, was ready for another go! 

We had to take photos with our awesome river guides: Lester on the left and Wilbert on the right. Wilbert, is the most senior river guide, so we were in competent hands. Lester is the newest, and had to drift through the Washing Machine as a rite of passage, hehe! Needless to say, he got a huge dunking,and a lot more ribbing from the other guides, lol!

Wet, tired but happy on the 45-min ride back to the city.

We took a quick shower when we got back to the crocodile park. and we got our complimentary photo dvd and a souvenir shirt too! This is the DH modeling his new shirt...river warrior yeah!

While we were waiting for Duboy and Lilai to pick us up, we took a couple of photos out at the entrance. those crocodile sculptures weren't there on our previous visit.

We were famished when we arrived, so we snacked on some trail mix during our wait.

The DH and I thoroughly enjoyed this new adventure! I've been wanting to do this for ages. But the DH wasn't keen on the idea. In fact, it even came up during a past tiff that I was getting reckless in the stuff I want to do. But I just said I wanted to try stuff that I'd be afraid to do when (and if!) we already had kids. [I heard people turned more cautious than ever when they become parents.] But until that happened to us, I want to get the more extreme sports and high-risk activities over and done with...like you know, bungee jumping, sky diving, para-sailing, surfing, skiing...stuff like those! But trying to be the good wife, I didn't insist he see things my way.

So I was really surprised when the DH asked if I was still interested in white-water-rafting since we could do it the next time we go to Davao! And that's how we ended up on this adventure. And now I can totally understand how addicting the adrenaline rush can get...and why people do the crazy stuff that they do in the quest for the next high.

But for now, I'm happy that the DH and I are still on the same page. That we enjoy and share in the same things together. The next chance we get, we're going to try the white-water rafting in Cagayan de Oro, on the northern part of Mindanao...and take the more advance run, so the DH can get his exercise and I get my thrills,lol!

That's just part of our Davao adventure...will post more stories and photos as soon as I can upload the pix to Picasa. :)

So for now, that's it from our little piece of paradise...A bientot!