“We don’t stop hiking because we grow old, we grow old because we stop hiking.”  — Finis Mitchell

On the same day that we had our Spelunking at Combilan Cave on that whole morning of July 26, 2009. Barangay Awao is 41 kilometers away from Monkayo Proper. It is where our next destination was located – Awao Falls. We are the last group of 5 commuting “habal-habal”  who arrived at Monkayo proper coming from the spelunking because our  habal-habal’s rear tire flat broke and we are delayed for almost an hour, good thing our driver was alert enough to have the initiative and the creativity to find ways in fixing the tire.

This is the reason why we arrived late

We arrived at the Monkayo proper at around 2:30 in the afternoon and we are  greeted by the vice mayor of the Municipality of Monkayo.

Here it is…

An arranged government dump truck brought us to our destination which was the Awao Falls, for almost 1 and a half hours of travel and all are having their great time taking the ride. Some of the participants had said that it’s their first encounter riding on a dump truck. Funny jokes and laughs are up beat until we arrived in the Jump-off area.

Relax and have fun

Dark clouds formed indicating that a rain will pour anytime that moment. We had walked for about 30 minutes going down to the Awao falls. The trail was somewhat wet as we are trailing on a stream of water going down to the falls.  There were logs that was used as a ladder to pass through streams of water. There were no flat area to walked for and all are pile of big rocks and some are decayed logs. As we go deeper into the this typical tropical forest and the natural lights are getting dimmer are the clouds are getting darker as the time goes by.

It was a very great feeling to see the falls for the first time and as soon as we arrived, we left our belongings at the dry area and started to play like kids on the gushing water of the falls.  The gushing water coming from above was not that high in volume but still it does relaxed our bodies from the stroke of strong current.  The falls is really wide if it was all occupied with water, water is cold but not chilling and it is noticeable that the fauna on it’s surroundings as well as the moss that was formed above the rocks where the falls are flowing are still thick indicating that this falls is not frequently visited by outsiders.

Past 5 in the afternoon and we returned to the area where the dump-truck was waiting to fetch us back to Monkayo. It was raining along the way and all are soaked wet and some are visibly looking tired  while others are sleeping.  It was almost 7 in the evening when we arrived at  Monkayo, we proceeded to one of our friends house – Tina Corpuz were a dinner was served for us. It was a festive mood as all are washing and cleaning up then smorgasbord or buffet of foods was served on the table.

The bus waited for us on that event to brought us back to Davao City. All are hushed as the bus started to it’s engine.

It was a great way to have our precious 1 day of visiting mother nature’s best.

Thank to all of the contributors of this successful event,  Tina Alonzo Corpuz and her family for accommodating us when we were at Monkayo. Food was great!

I would like to thank Arthur Yap for the images.

Until next outdoor escapade!