So let’s talk about my day yesterday!! So it was my team’s off day and another team’s off day, so we decided to go to a waterfall that we had heard about! So, we got 13 of us on a Jeepney (way of transportation here) and rode it for about and hour and a half to get there. We got to Daranak Falls and it was amazing! It was a reminder of how amazing God is and how creative He is. So, of course, we all wanted to jump in but, unfortunately, we couldn’t jump from the top. We still got to jump from another ledge. When I jumped in it was cold at first but it felt so good. The power of the waterfall was strong and it pushed us away from it so we had to use all our strength to swim to the other side of the waterfall.
So we’re all there having a good time and people start to dive in, so I’m like, “Yeah, I wanna dive in here.” The problem is, I can’t dive. So I tried once and did a mild belly flop. Not so bad. I did it again and did an extremely painful belly flop. I had welts on my tummy, it was all red, and I’m pretty sore today. It was fun though! When we go back, I’m gonna be a pro at diving.
Alrighty, so we got done there and we wanted to go to a cave nearby. The problem with this is that we didn’t tell the Jeepney guy to come back and get us so we were kinda stranded. So we just started to walk. This path started with going down some stairs then crossing a river. However, the river didn’t have a bridge. So now it was raining and we had to find a shallow part of the river to cross. The river water still came up to our thighs but no one fell in! So we made it across the river and then we had to go up 12 stairs that lead to a path that lead to another flight of stairs. We hiked up these huge, steep stairs and along the side of the stairs they had resting areas and at each rest stop they had a different stage of the crucifixion. It was pretty cool, like, ‘Hey Jesus died on a cross for me but I can’t hike up these stairs.’ It kinda helped you to keep going. So we finally made it to the top and we’re all like dripping sweat and breathing hard. We realized we had just climbed up 372 stairs. I was honestly shocked it was only 372. It definitely felt like at least 500.
But anyway, we got up to the top and we looked behind us and we’re in someone’s back yard. We actually had to ask the people that lived there where to go and if we could walk through their yard to get out. So we made it out of their yard and now we were literally in the middle of nowhere and had no idea where to go. So we just followed a path that lead to a road (still no people or houses around). We were told to make a right at the road so we did and we found a little bridge off the side of the road. We thought we were suppose to take that but some people didn’t think we were, so we got back on the road and kept walking. We passed a cow and it’s baby just chilling there on the side of the path. Then, right past the cows, was a school. We went through the gate into the yard of the school and had to ask a teacher to help us with directions. She told us that we were supposed to cross that bridge. So we turned around and headed back towards the bridge (keep in mind it’s still raining). So we come up to the cows again and this time the male cow is in the middle of the path. One of the girls goes to pass him and he charged at her. We all freaked out and were all like, “Crap, how do we get past this mad cow?” Then, this little lady came out of nowhere with her little umbrella, picked up some rocks, and threw them at the cow and the cow just ran away. We were so shocked that all we had to do was throw a rock at this cow.
So we made it past the mad cow and finally found the cave. The caves were so cool. They didn’t have flashlights so we had to use our phone lights and make our way through this cave. We went through a lot of mud, a lot of people hit their heads on low rocks, and a lot of us had bats fly in front of our faces. It was awesome and I loved it. We got to this part of the cave where we had to walk through this area of all water. We were already wet and muddy so we didn’t care. The scary part was once we stepped down into the water, we had to turn all our lights off. So we’re standing in water, it’s pitch black, and I’m like holding my teammate’s hand trying not to freak out. Luckily, no bats flew around us during this part of the tour. The lady let us turn our lights back on and kept going. Me and some other people strayed from the path into this little hole in the wall and founds some bats. We started walking toward them but then they started to fly so we all booked it out of there.
When we were done in the cave, we came out and were able to see how covered with mud we were. We had it all over us. We all washed up at a lady’s house and made our journey back home. I would have to say that yesterday was the most fun, most adventurous day I’ve ever had. I loved every second of it. If I had to do it over again, I would in a heartbeat! I can’t wait to tell you guys about more crazy adventures that are yet to come!
