Palawan Subterranean River 0
I am really grateful for the fact that the Philippines may be small and an economically challenged nation, yet it still has something worthy of being called as a beautiful country. Last month, I was seeking the internet for possible, beautiful tourist attractions that are potentially helpful in bringing foreign tourists to the Philippines and help boost the economy of the country through tourism. The new7wonders foundation, started a voting campaign to declare the new 7 wonders of nature.
The Philippines had four nominees namely; the Chocolate Hills, Mayon Volcano, the Tubbataha Reef and the Puerto Princessa Subterranean River National Park. Today, the voting campaign is now in the third phase, and 3 were already eliminated, except the Puerto Princessa Subterranean River National Park. I have heard some hearsay about this attraction from a lot of people, and they said that it was such a magnificent place to witness. So a group of friends went with me to see the attraction firsthand.
We availed a package tour from an agency. It just had a few days of processing time, and we headed there immediately. Surprisingly, I also found out that they were sending many tourists to the Subterranean River of Palawan every week and a lot of other travel agencies experience this frequency too. We arrived at Puerto Princessa at around 9 am in the morning, we checked in the hotel, left our things and went down the lobby to catch our ride to our destination.
It took us just around one and ½ hours of land travel to get to the town of Sabang, where the natural landmark is located, I was enjoying what the tourist said to us on the trip, her name was Annie. The river is in fact, the longest navigable underground river in the world, reaching up to 8 kilometers. It is the only surviving Philippine nominee for the new7wonders of nature, which is on its third phase of voting as of now, there are species of monkeys and massive monitor lizards around the cave.
We arrived at the beach, crowded with tourists, most of them are Filipinos, and I could see the caves mouth ahead. We stepped off the van, and Annie led us to a part near the shore where people are given safety equipment like life jackets, helmets and flashlights. Small traditional Filipino pump boats are also waiting nearby ready for loading.
When we finally got settled, it took 10 minutes for the small boat to reach the cave. Normally, it was dark, but there was a particularly strong smell and the man driving the boat said that it was bat poo, also known as Guano and this is also common to other caves too. Looking at the ceiling, the roof of the cave was tremendous, full of rock formations, and hanging bats of course, look creepy.
There are many bats too, which are flying just above us and some might even hit. As the small fleet headed deeper into the caves, there were magnificent structures like mushrooms, grapes, candles, jellyfish, sharks and the one that struck me the most was the image of Jesus Christ. The river opens up to the South China Sea, but we headed back to where we left because we will also be leaving through there too.
Via : ricky_artigas
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