The Underground River cruise is far from where we are staying. The service picked us up at around 8:00am and travel around 2 hours going to Sabang port. When we arrived in Sabang port, we transferred to a pump boat to bring us to the Underground River. The boat ride is around 45mins from Sabang port to the Underground River.
In the Underground River, there was also a wildlife park before reaching the river itself. We saw some monkeys and iguanas along the way. The locals told us that they are already tamed but avoid feeding and getting very close to them.
Finally, we saw the start of the river cruise. We are advised to register and to put on our life jackets and the hard caps. Be aware that the jackets does not smells good. If you’re sensitive with these kinds of stuff, you might be irritated with the smell.
The boat consists of 12 passengers minus the tour guide/driver. The person in front will be the ones holding the spotlight and will be the driver’s guide as we take the cruise.
Upon entering the cave, you’ll get to see a lot of small fishes together with the bats and birds. I didn’t managed to take pictures using my camera since I don’t know the correct settings for “cave mode”. I relied on my digital camera for the insides of the cave.
It was a long cruise, a 4.2km paddled boat ride. They said that pump boats might hard the rock formation and the bats as well so they opted to use the paddle boats. As you go on the cruise, the tour guide explains history and instructs the light man in front to direct the light to different rock formations inside.
The Underground River was declared a National Park by former Pres. Marcos. Being so, we are not allowed to touch anything because it might cause discoloration of the rocks and may damage it.
We saw rock formations such as the coliseum and the famous Cathedral where we saw the rock that resembles the Virgin Mary, the Holy Family, the Three Kings, the burning candle and also the Pegasus. Next is the Fruits and Vegetable corner where we saw rocks that assembled the corn, carrots and a big mushroom.
After the fruit and vegetable section are some random rock formations such as the head of T-Rex, an upside-down arms, a rock that is similar to the Lord’s face we also saw the highest peak/point of the cave which is around 62 meters if I remember it right.
Then at a certain point, the boatman made a turn going back to where we started, but we’re on the other side of the cave. We saw some sparkling rocks that looks like a jar of glitters was spilled on it.
As we reach the exit, there were still lots of birds and sleeping bats inside the cave. Luckily no bat dropped a bomb!
We ate lunch in Taraw Restaurant. It was a buffet styled lunch treat. We had chicken adobo, pork liempo, cucumber, kankong, tuna and fresh buko for our drinks. We had a good lunch and a good rest there. Around 2:30-3:00pm, we are getting ready to go home.
On our way back to the city, we stopped by in Viet Ville – a vietnamese village. I haven’t been to Vietnam so I can’t compare their houses. They said there were still vietnamese people living there around 3-4 families at most. The street signs are in vietnamese language and even the signs. We didn’t bother to taste their noodles since our officemates advised us that it tastes like “Maggi” noodles.
We arrived in our hotel by 4-5:00pm. Just enough time to relax and be ready for our night adventure, the Firefly Watching.
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