Destination Davao: Ready, Steady, GO!!! (Part 4 of ?)

Our Davao weekend was dedicated to close encounters with nature—and this is the first one, our adventures at Eden Nature Park. I’ll try to let the pictures do the talking.

After this was taken, the food disintegrated. Okay, fine—it was consumed appropriately, as we need all the energy we can get for what awaited us in the next several hours.

We decided to avail the tour package to upstart our nature tripping. Eden Nature Park is quite huge with plenty of things to do (that you usually have to pay for, anything free is rare these days). So, with the most economical choice, we went for the tour package with snack.

These were some of our stops, and unfortunately, I can’t really remember what they’re called exactly. ^^;;

Last time it was the fountain lights, THIS TIME, it’s the pweety, pweety flowers!!! We had a blast here—on top, I think these are daisies (O_o?) and on the bottom pic, it’s actually a wishing well filled with colorful gumamela flowers.

Of course, we just HAD to goof around with motion capture shots—it would’ve been nice if we were actually caught in midair. Really, we weren’t constipated here, or something.

Un-deux-trois-quatre!!! After the snack, this heart-love-nest area is just too good to pass up. For those who know me, this might not be the exact thing you would associate with me, but for the past few days exposed to people with characters of cam-whoreness and pose-whoreness (yes, S and R, I mean you guys), it kind of rubbed off on me.

A little bit of solo pics. The left one is actually taken during the mountain trail adventure, discussed below. The right one is during the tour.

So I mentioned that free things come rarely, but there was one free-of-charge adventure in Eden, and that was the mountain trail. We weren’t really planning on doing this—after all, it was slightly raining when we got to Eden and we were told that it was ‘not advisable’ at the time when we inquired. But because we were so awed with the sceneries during the tour and also because it never really occurred to us that ‘not advisable’ is a diplomatic way of saying “Absolutely-not! You-gotta-be-out-of-your-effin’-minds-wanting-to-plunge-in-the-depths-of-a-slippery-wet-mountain-terrain-on-your-own-in-this-weather!!!” (Hehe, we also FAIL at hip hop.)

Oh well, interpretations are relative. So off we go.

The whole trail adventure turned out really fun, anyways. Of course, with occasional minor and major slips here and there, shortness of breath and an epiphany that Crocs sandals can withstand slippery (sans muddy) trails, I thought it was really worth it. The entire trail seemed to vary in difficulty as one treks along—we noticed this because during the first kilometer or so, we were still lively and taking pictures. But once the slipping started, spiders and other bugs appeared and the trail disappeared coupled with obstructions, we knew that things were getting serious. A specific act I really liked during the trek was how we helped each other out by warning those behind what coming ahead of them (A, being generally in the lead, I salute you for embracing most of the cobwebs and other creatures on the path). It reminded me of ‘bayanihan’, but in a different way.

We found the ‘give up, surrender’ signs along the way to be amusing. US—give up? Are you effin’ kidding?! HAH! We don’t give up. We stick through our guns no matter what! When we make our beds, we lie on it. We went on, thinking of nothing but the finish line, the end of the tunnel, the ultimate goal…keep walking for there is no turning back.

Um, we didn’t finish the trail. -__-()

But it’s not because we were uber exhausted…well, sure, we were tired and all but c’mon—the rain got heavier! T called for back up and the next thing, we were zooming back to the Day Tour Center via the Tourmobile! (Ahh~ such a nice ride… ; ). We fell a third short of completing the trail but each of us were able to bring bits of memories from that adventure—like I had photos, my uber muddied Adidas and a scar. Now if you think that was the end, you’re mistaken. Much as we are determined individuals, we are also hard-headed, stubborn and really adventurous—so after the mountain trail, off to zip line Skyrider adventure! I’m not good at approximations so according to this, there is about 200-meter distance between the two ends of the zip line across a 60-foot drop. The ride is two-way, with the whole thing lasting for maybe two minutes. It’s PHP 150 and they make you sign a waiver—like they will claim responsibility if you break a nail or something. Climbing to the top of the tower can be exhausting (but hell, we’ve been through harsher conditions than this MINUTES ago, so this was cake walk). After that, it’s zip time!

YEAH, BABY!!! It was scary, exhilarating and relaxing at the same time. When you’re in the middle of the line, the view is simply amazing. And it was rather fast, maybe around third gear if you’re driving a manual (so that’s what, 30-40 kph?). I wouldn’t mind doing this again. ^_^

Next post will be about the island hopping, which happened the very next day. Stay tuned.


To Be Continued.