I remember our guide told us this fact about our next destination. Pongas Falls is a fairly new discovery of SAGAS that they offer to visitors of the town. We ended up going down south after our first failed attempt to visit Bomod-ok Falls. We all thought it was just another waterfalls but death defying trail and a night trek made Pongas one-hell-of –an-adventure.
The day that five friends from our group went back to Manila was the day that we decided to visit the big falls. Unfortunately, due to some misunderstandings between the SAGAS and the local guides in Banga-an village, we change our route. We decided to do Pongas Falls instead that afternoon so we won’t waste time. It was another 1 ½ hours of jeep drive but fret not, the view of the rice terraces along the way will keep you awake. On this side of Sagada, Ankileng Rice terraces dominate the view. Our wheels stopped at a parking lot, signaling us that we reached our drop off point to the water falls, the start of our trek.
Fun Facts: Due to time constraints, we will start our trek at the village going to the falls. Usually people visiting Pongas falls will do river trekking.
Our little Trekking Adventure
Walking at the paved pathway of the village is like a walk in the park. We sometimes stopped to appreciate and took some photos of the surroundings. The challenge of this trek starts once you cross the terraces and muddy part of the hills.
Fun Facts: Ankeling is the warmest area in Sagada, a reason why you can find tall coconut trees in the area
There are parts during the trek that you need to squeeze (due to lack of adjective to describe the situation, squeeze I think will do for now…hehe) yourself in order not to fall at the drop in front of you. We passed by water streams, big stone boulders, slippery trails, finally Pongas Falls reveal itself.
Seven waterfalls compose Pongas Falls. I describe my experience as an “out-of-the-jungle-book-experience”, why? Because of the settings, it reminded me of a scene from the book, “The Jungle Book”. I never thought there is something like this that will actually exist in real life. I felt I was transported back to my toddler years, climbing boulders and swimming at pools created by the cascading waterfalls are just a few of the things I imagine whenever I’m reading that book and to finally experience it first hand is really awesome.
Spending a couple of hours at Pongas Falls is a bit short but because time is not on our side we give in to our guide’s request that we need to go back. The sun was already setting when we are preparing to head back to the parking lot. Good thing our guide managed to borrow head lamps prior to the trek.
We will be trekking the same route of water streams, big stone boulders, slippery trails but this time no more sunlight. It was my first night trek, and even my mountaineer friends wouldn’t suggest doing this due to safety reasons, but we did or else we can’t go back to the town proper. Baby steps, small steps, we do everything in slow motion just to get out of safe and in one piece. Night trekking is risky but because of the adventurous people I’m with, everything went well.
We wanted to visit Pongas Falls sometime soon to try the river trekking and rappelling part of the tour that we didn’t have the chance to try.
7 comments:
woohoo.. da best talaga ang night trek!
@ivan uu nga masaya sya gawin pero sana handa tayo hehe
second photo is a wow-shot. astig!
Am really a waterfalls fanatic, hence, an avid follower of this blog post series. Thanks for sharing.
@dong ho thanks, sayang di ko sya photo =( i dont want to sacrifice my slr's safety hahaha
@edsan thanks for dropping by. I'm a waterfalls fan boy as well. you'll love my cebu post, I went to another falls there as well
Ang ganda talaga sa pictures, what more pa sa bare?
@roman super ganda kapag nakita mo sya ng live! hahaha
Post a Comment