Tinipak river

We had the place entirely to ourselves. Just me, Julie, Fredda, Nancy and a tour guide. I was somewhere in Quezon surrounded by mountains of marble, crystal-clear water, lush vegetation and 3 beautiful ladies. It’s a hard life but someone has to live it.

With my travelmates, Julie, Fredda and Nancy.

More than 90% of the trail involved walking through level ground. The difficulty hiked up significantly near the end of the trail. There was a series of very steep and quite high inclines that couldn't have been negotiated without using all 4 limbs, unless you’re one of the locals who could probably do it bound and blindfolded with an adult goat strapped to their back. We almost turned back when saw the first steep “cliff”. I'm glad we didn't.

The white rocks are made of marble

 We didn't see any other tourists/hikers that day. The very steep inclines made it practically unreachable to amateurs but the whole trek was probably too short and unchallenging for the too advanced. You only go there if you have sufficient rock climbing skills or if you don’t know what you got yourself into and you couldn’t turn back anyway. I belong to the latter group.

scenic scene is scenic

Treks usually end up not being what I thought they’d be. I was expecting it to be an hour long trip to a place near Marikinia. That’s why I brought my gas guzzler of a car. The trip turned out to be a 100km (guesstimate) drive to the borders of Quezon. I was almost out of gas when we got there. I didn’t expect a hike so I didn’t bring water. I had to ask my good old friend, Julie, for one of her water bottles. I need to bow my head in shame now.

We parked my car Xander at this gas station and took a tricycle to the beginning of the trail

We left Manila at around 8am, got to rizal at around 10:30 or 11. The hike to the falls was between 1-2 hours long. We stayed at the falls for around 4-5 hours. We paid the guide 300 pesos (+100 tip). Lunch cost almost nothing since we, or more accurately, the girls cooked our food and we divided the cost among us. The tricycle from the town to the start of the trail cost us 50 per head and 75 per head on the way back. It was a very reasonably priced little trek.

with Fredda

Maybe I am getting used to hiking already and only on my 3rd hike. What I used to call difficult, I now call challenging. There is happiness to be had in communing with nature. I can imagine myself doing this more often

More Photos:

Photo of the Sierra Madre mountain range taken en route to Tanay, Rizal. One advantage of bringing your own vehicle is you can stop anytime you want to take photos.

I wasn't the only photography enthusiast among us. Too bad her camera fell into the water

The most hardcore among us. Julie's bag not only looked heavy, it was heavy. I actually thought that we were gonna have goat for lunch cos it seemed like she was carrying one in her bag 

If you don't mind banging your head against a few rocks and dying, you can probably swim here

preparing food

This was when I first realized that we were already in Quezon

Our campsite