Puerto Princesa Underground River Tour
After (1, 2, 3) long stories about coming to this place, now it's time to tell you my tour of a cave with a river inside it! Don't be surprised if this isn't that long a story, than the previous three. Madilim kasi eh!
Look to where the red arrow points, that is the cave where boats enter. And because this river goes all the way in there (or should I say "comes from there"?), that's the reason why it's called an underground river. This is uniquely the only cave where you (must) sit on a boat while exploring all its dark interiors!
Why so? Because its "floor" is deep enough to submerge you!
But there must be some shallow parts where humans can stand or walk-on, right? Well, yes there are. In fact, in the past, visitors were allowed to alight from their boats at those shallow portions. But why get off your boat when you don't know what might be waiting for you at those shallow portions, aber?
Ayiyiyiiieee, ayaw ko, ayaw!
Here here.., I took a "to whom it may concern" picture, immediately once our boat was inside. Duu!
Yes, it is total darkness in there, but your boatman, aside from being busy rowing the boat (with 10 of you heavy passengers), also has a torchlight attached to his helmet. Where he trains that light at, you can see those parts of the cave - and a chance for you to click your cameras too, if you want anyway!
Where did we get those helmets? Ah, those are distributed just before you get on a boat. All who enter that cave are required to wear them. Why? Because there are stalactites that hang very low, your head could hit and break them. Sayang naman, they grow at a very slow rate of only half an inch every year!
Sayang din your skull, which might not reach the average life expectancy of 75 years, all because you head-butted a stalactite! Di ba la? Besides, those helmets were protection enough while we were still outside the cave as it was raining cats and dogs! Look at the first pic above. It was a heavy downpour.
Plus, when you are already in the cave (okay okay, the underground river), there will also be infrequent droplets from the darkness above. If a "droplet" feels cold.., that would be the mineral-rich fresh water seeping-through from roots of big trees growing on the virgin forest grounds atop the cave. Mind you, if you stay put catching those droplets for millions of years, a stalagmite can grow on you! Coolness!
Now now.., if a "droplet" feels warm, it could only be an excretion of either the bats or birds that dwell inside the cave. It's enough that you felt the warmth. Don't anymore attempt to smell it. Be thankful it fell on your helmet, not directly on your hair or splat on your face! That's incredible luck! Eeeew-ness!
So, wear that helmet all the time as instructed. Intiendes?!
Oh by the way, along with the helmets, we were also given each an audio device (like a "heavy" remote control that you can wear as a necklace connected to an ear piece), that has a recording of things you ought to hear and know while floating inside the cave. The annotation is in various languages that you can choose from. So, there's no more of the Manong Boatman talking and joking. He's now just taking care of pointing the torchlight to stalactite and stalagmite formations. While boat paddling, of course!
The audio device is an improvement (I suppose). It is like those provided in many tour attractions and HOHO buses around the world. But if you ask me, it was more hilariously fun and memorably 'crazier' with boatmen annotating the tour 'live'! Well, then again, the multi-lingual audio thing is more efficient!
Let's just commit the "olden-style" of touring the cave, to my "human-memory-archives"!
Another thing.., about those life-vests (life jacket, flotation device, whatever they're called nowadays).., What we were already wearing on the motorboat from Sabang were the same that we still wore all the way to the cave, as you can see in the pictures above and in the previous story. Our guides specifically told us to do so. But I saw that other visitors (in groups or solo) still had to be given those, along with the helmets and audio devices. Maybe we just had the best of guides, as the way we did it was better.
Okay okay, back to the cave! Where the torchlight beamed at, I tried clicking my camera for a photo..,
I knew this was to be a "come what may", "to whom it may concern" kind of picture-taking. But I had to do it anyway, mayhap I accidentally miraculously snap one good catchy shot or two, right? Let's thank the technology of digital cameras -memory cards booted out expensive films so click ka lang ng click!
I do have to report this to my photography coaches (na masusungit): I observed and therefore learned that, having a water-resistant or waterproof point-and-shoot camera or smartphone doesn't mean I'm out of trouble (pala)! Water droplets (or even vapor) could be lingering in the lens, which would appear as annoying blurs or pesky clouds in the photo. Eh how can you check that in the darkness of a cave?!
Yep, a lesson learned. Tsambahan na lang! And oh yes, shooting with a totally submerged camera is a thousand times easier, than doing it under the rain or in a dripping dark cave. Lessons learned indeed!
But some pictures were good enough. Like this scattering of bats hanging from the cave's 'ceiling'!
Those are not mere specks of cave dirt! They are all bats hanging upside-down (resting). There's even one (at lower-middle of the photo) that I caught in mid-flight, though I'm not sure if it's a bat or a bird!
Yes, there are birds in the cave's total darkness! Here's one fantastically memorable 'accidental shot'!
THAT is the beauty of what I call my "to-whom-it-may-concern photography"! Eh the manong boatman was constantly moving his torchlight, but I could sense there were so many flying things above us. So, I raised my camera and clicked without an idea what can be caught in front of its lens. Voila, that bird!
Like the bats, those birds are also tiny and fast. I wonder if they too use echolocation like bats do?
Then the tour gets you around the many "faces" of this underworld. It is not all black-and-white by the way. And like anywhere else on earth, locals have this penchant for naming cave formations with their likenesses to people or things. It titillates your imagination! Like this is supposed to be "the nativity"!
Did you get that one? They say it resembles "Mary and Joseph adoringly looking at The Infant Jesus"!
Those things are mentioned in the audio narration! You may even occasionally ask your boatman, so he can adjust the torchlight to properly illuminate the things being referred to. Here are more of them:
Well, there are "obviously human" markings/writings, like this one that my red arrow points to:
I think it says March 18, 1937 (3-18-37) or is it 57? And it looks like a military title and name. We can't be sure if that was really "vandalism" (the way we define that word today), right? They may have had a legitimate purpose (from their olden interpretation of what was "legitimate") during those days, right?
Oh, my green arrow points to another of those fast-flying birds, ume-epal lang sya, photobomber ba!
It is wide on many parts of the cave. Here we were saying hello to half of our group on another boat!
Various quad-media literature say that this cave is a little over 8kms of navigable river in it, 1.5kms of which are only as far as boat tours could go to, before turning back. But, according to my natural radar echolocation superpowers, our boatmen turned around without even nearing 1km deep into the cave!
But hello, I am not complaining! I'm not a fan of "kasisidman" anyway hehehe! Let there be light!
And so there was light, at the end of the tunnel, haaay salamat! The entrance, viewed from inside!
I was happiest we were on our way out! I am no caveman, okay? I am just another son-of-a-beach. Da!
Look, me pasaway na kamay! Sinabi nang 手を触れないでください, 만지지 마세요, 'do not touch' eh..,
Ayan, tocado, tersetuh, ni-touch, hinipo, gi-hikap, gin-harapihap pa rin! Hin kasasalwagun manda atara!
Actually, it was the boatman who first touched that stalactite as we entered the cave! And these solid protrusions from earth do make adorable sounds like musical instruments. Ayun na, meron pa daw o!
So.., as we passed, some hands reached out for it! Others even knocked just to hear how it sounds..,
I take that as, we, or our boatman must have not been unique. Meaning, there must be other boatmen who do, or also allow their passengers to touch those stalactites. No harm intended I'm sure, just their courtesy to let tourists feel it, and have a more memorable experience. But, what if (later) it falls off?
The constant touching will shake those 'rocks' little by little. But with millions of hands doing the thing year after year, on a daily basis, the vibrations could slowly keep nudging it until it breaks apart. Watch out people who are yet to visit. Pag nalaglag (sana) yan sa mga ulo nyo, goodbye earth kayo, for sure!
Anyway, let's pause a moment here, before finally going out of the cave, and talk about the river..,
If you try to recall at this point, most everything discussed while on this "tour" was about the cave and the many things in it like the "sayote", the "Mama Mary", and all those forms and shapes of stalactites and stalagmites. It was a cave tour! Pilosopo Tasyo in me asked, why is it an "underground river tour"?
Hehe, actually, I wanted to hear more about the "underground river" than formations in the cave which are essentially just the same as many others on earth - stalactities and stalagmites. THIS RIVER IN A CAVE THAT MAKES THE REAL DIFFERENCE IS NOT EXPOUNDED NOR SHOWN WITH MORE DETAIL!
Thus, immediately after we emerged from this cave, I texted some knowledgeable people I know, and surfed the web for more information. Hah, there's a plethora of amazing things people ought to know!
First to titillate my lowly brain was/is the word "estuarine". Hmm, I know something about that. It's the most fertile kind of water with lots of living things -from fresh aquatic to marine animals and others in between- thriving amply together. Where and what are they on this river? It'd be grander to know them!
Well, we saw a tiny fishy fish barkada by this mouth of the cave. I wonder now.., are they salt-water or fresh-water fish? How far deep into the darkness of the cave or out unto the open ocean can they go?
Inside or outside the cave, include those that swim in and out, how big is the biggest and how small is the smallest? Aber patingin! That would be the loveliest Puerto Princesa Underground River Tour ever!
Whereabouts did the Italian Explorers find that "Sirenia" thing? Is it within the publicly accessible area? If not, how deep away? Did they yet find a "syokoynia"? Hahaha me sirena eh.., so baka me syokoy din!
The same explorers also said that the salty water can go up to 6 kilometers deep into the darkness of the cave. They said they have evidence of "marine creatures into the deeper part of the cave". Can you show these during the tour? Surely all of them pass by this 'entrance'! What are those? Pasayan, Pagi, Pating? OMG me "jaws" in the underground river? Now, that should be the most exciting of tours. Duu!
There are fresh-water crocs and there are salt-water crocs. We also know that the Philippine Crocodile or "Crocodylus mindorensis" can thrive in both brackish and fresh water, and they can hide in caves or burrow in sandy beaches. Now, therefore, tell us, meron ba nyan sa cave and underground river na ito?
Hiyaaay! Don't tell us, that all of them have now relocated to the Crocodile Farm in the city?!
One more もう1つ isa pa 하나 더! This thing that the Italians saw should be shown to us tourists:
"...observed in May 2000, when we saw huge heaps of Ocypodidae larvae (ghost crab)". "...Their mass literally covered the walls for about half a metre from water level, for hundreds of metres. Many larvae could also be seen swimming in the water". Crabs, they probably taste good! They're delectable, right?
So the monkeys, very highly probably also enter this cave, right? They're called "crab-eating monkeys" (Macaca fascicularis philippensis) in the first place. Oh, lizards eat crabs too. And they're amphibians. So, they also enter this cave underground river? Now, where there are big lizards there'll also be bigger lizards, and biggest lizards, right? The biggest lizard? Croc? Buwaya! There must be crocs in that cave!
Oh my nanay ko madre mia 어머! ああ、私の！ But let's move on and out of this cave!
As our boat emerged from the underground river, I saw this beside of the cave's main entrance/exit:
I was curious at that smaller "hole", which probably is another "gate" to some abysmal darkness. But, I soon observed that the inoffensive, faultless, external wall of the limestone rock, has been vandalized.
May those names be marked in the gates of hell to ensure they enter that way hehehe! But if it was/is any consolation to my annoyed little brain, we can actually infer at how high the tides (and/or floods?) can reach on this part of the river, which should be bewildering enough. Surely, those idiots must have boarded boats or floating whatevers, on a high tide, for them to write, etch or carve those ugly names!
But, if you tell me, that the water level (tidal or otherwise) 'do not' or 'can not' reach that high anymore, then there must be something wrong somewhere in this our part of earth, right? That means the water level is permanently ebbing out?! Oh dear, oh dear.., then there will come a time that the underground river is no more? Oh my dear earth forgive us our sins..! What could it be caused by, climate change?
Seriously, back in the '80s, even up to early '90s, it was common knowledge that the few tourists (who were 'already' considered adventurous at that time) were to watch out for "high tide" when coming to this St. Paul Underground River, because boats (they were even small bancas in those days) could not pass thru the entrance during those times. How come we do not anymore hear about that handicap?
What? Lumaki yung butas? O hindi na gaanong tumataas ang tubig? Oh My Gino-o ko...
Anyway.., we were finally out of the cave and underground river, to a bight but still-raining world. Argh!
Look, it had been raining for 1.5 hours, but the river's water color was still about the same - turquoise.
This 'pride umbrella'-wielding dude with an SLR said something to welcome us back. Staff? Maybe!
But the river's water color by the banks was already starting to get murky. I guess that's expected.
Under the rain, boatmen/staff were on-hand to assist us. The guy in black was next to row the boat!
We noticed, when boatmen/staff go inside the cave, they don't wear helmets. We think they should.
There he was, ready to take passengers, while another boat enters, because we were already out!
Rest time for our boatman, not our boat, its got a new driver! We were back in the care of our guides!
And their cycle of the underground river tour repeats..!
But my story does not end yet! Walking back to the beach, for our motorboat to Sabang, we saw this:
We said "OMG Mrs.Tsonggo what are you doing"? That's a baby monkey she's carrying. Under the rain!
And we also said "OMG West Philippine Sea what're you doing"? Relentless rain and a little rough sea!
Note: before this ride, our guides allowed us to dip a bit and have fun at the white sandy beach by the entrance to the jungle path, since we were drenched in rain, and perspiration from wearing the vests!
Hey by the way, the sea water felt refreshingly warm under that heavy rain!
But, the skies did not seem to have any plans of stopping the rain, even as we arrived back at Sabang!
At least, to our relief, there was no lightning or thunder as we sailed through the West Philippine Sea!
Boat crews put out (again) their giant yellow umbrella for us - those we see used by sidewalk vendors!
A nice heartwarming gesture. But we (and them) were all dripping, so we declined and said "watdah"!
Ah, the good part.., we disembarked and told to proceed immediately to "Gusto Grill & Restaurant" for a warm and hefty buffet lunch (part of the tour package). This was already 2:20PM! Thankfully, no one of us felt really starved (just hungry hehehe) since we kept eating this and that, every step of the way!
The restaurant has a number of good enough and clean bathrooms where we all took our showers, to rinse off the salty sea and the rain from our royal bodies! And we all even changed to our preferred dry clothes before clambering back unto our vans. How and Why? Remember we passed by Aziza early in the morning but were not allowed to leave our bags? So, all things were with us in our respective vans!
But I still hate that woman. And we were going there, immediately after this underground river tour.
War freak mode, sugod to Aziza! That's my next story!
Why so? Because its "floor" is deep enough to submerge you!
But there must be some shallow parts where humans can stand or walk-on, right? Well, yes there are. In fact, in the past, visitors were allowed to alight from their boats at those shallow portions. But why get off your boat when you don't know what might be waiting for you at those shallow portions, aber?
Ayiyiyiiieee, ayaw ko, ayaw!
Here here.., I took a "to whom it may concern" picture, immediately once our boat was inside. Duu!
Where did we get those helmets? Ah, those are distributed just before you get on a boat. All who enter that cave are required to wear them. Why? Because there are stalactites that hang very low, your head could hit and break them. Sayang naman, they grow at a very slow rate of only half an inch every year!
Sayang din your skull, which might not reach the average life expectancy of 75 years, all because you head-butted a stalactite! Di ba la? Besides, those helmets were protection enough while we were still outside the cave as it was raining cats and dogs! Look at the first pic above. It was a heavy downpour.
Plus, when you are already in the cave (okay okay, the underground river), there will also be infrequent droplets from the darkness above. If a "droplet" feels cold.., that would be the mineral-rich fresh water seeping-through from roots of big trees growing on the virgin forest grounds atop the cave. Mind you, if you stay put catching those droplets for millions of years, a stalagmite can grow on you! Coolness!
Now now.., if a "droplet" feels warm, it could only be an excretion of either the bats or birds that dwell inside the cave. It's enough that you felt the warmth. Don't anymore attempt to smell it. Be thankful it fell on your helmet, not directly on your hair or splat on your face! That's incredible luck! Eeeew-ness!
So, wear that helmet all the time as instructed. Intiendes?!
Oh by the way, along with the helmets, we were also given each an audio device (like a "heavy" remote control that you can wear as a necklace connected to an ear piece), that has a recording of things you ought to hear and know while floating inside the cave. The annotation is in various languages that you can choose from. So, there's no more of the Manong Boatman talking and joking. He's now just taking care of pointing the torchlight to stalactite and stalagmite formations. While boat paddling, of course!
Let's just commit the "olden-style" of touring the cave, to my "human-memory-archives"!
Another thing.., about those life-vests (life jacket, flotation device, whatever they're called nowadays).., What we were already wearing on the motorboat from Sabang were the same that we still wore all the way to the cave, as you can see in the pictures above and in the previous story. Our guides specifically told us to do so. But I saw that other visitors (in groups or solo) still had to be given those, along with the helmets and audio devices. Maybe we just had the best of guides, as the way we did it was better.
Okay okay, back to the cave! Where the torchlight beamed at, I tried clicking my camera for a photo..,
I do have to report this to my photography coaches (na masusungit): I observed and therefore learned that, having a water-resistant or waterproof point-and-shoot camera or smartphone doesn't mean I'm out of trouble (pala)! Water droplets (or even vapor) could be lingering in the lens, which would appear as annoying blurs or pesky clouds in the photo. Eh how can you check that in the darkness of a cave?!
Yep, a lesson learned. Tsambahan na lang! And oh yes, shooting with a totally submerged camera is a thousand times easier, than doing it under the rain or in a dripping dark cave. Lessons learned indeed!
But some pictures were good enough. Like this scattering of bats hanging from the cave's 'ceiling'!
Yes, there are birds in the cave's total darkness! Here's one fantastically memorable 'accidental shot'!
Like the bats, those birds are also tiny and fast. I wonder if they too use echolocation like bats do?
Then the tour gets you around the many "faces" of this underworld. It is not all black-and-white by the way. And like anywhere else on earth, locals have this penchant for naming cave formations with their likenesses to people or things. It titillates your imagination! Like this is supposed to be "the nativity"!
Those things are mentioned in the audio narration! You may even occasionally ask your boatman, so he can adjust the torchlight to properly illuminate the things being referred to. Here are more of them:
Well, there are "obviously human" markings/writings, like this one that my red arrow points to:
Oh, my green arrow points to another of those fast-flying birds, ume-epal lang sya, photobomber ba!
It is wide on many parts of the cave. Here we were saying hello to half of our group on another boat!
But hello, I am not complaining! I'm not a fan of "kasisidman" anyway hehehe! Let there be light!
And so there was light, at the end of the tunnel, haaay salamat! The entrance, viewed from inside!
Look, me pasaway na kamay! Sinabi nang 手を触れないでください, 만지지 마세요, 'do not touch' eh..,
Actually, it was the boatman who first touched that stalactite as we entered the cave! And these solid protrusions from earth do make adorable sounds like musical instruments. Ayun na, meron pa daw o!
So.., as we passed, some hands reached out for it! Others even knocked just to hear how it sounds..,
The constant touching will shake those 'rocks' little by little. But with millions of hands doing the thing year after year, on a daily basis, the vibrations could slowly keep nudging it until it breaks apart. Watch out people who are yet to visit. Pag nalaglag (sana) yan sa mga ulo nyo, goodbye earth kayo, for sure!
Anyway, let's pause a moment here, before finally going out of the cave, and talk about the river..,
Hehe, actually, I wanted to hear more about the "underground river" than formations in the cave which are essentially just the same as many others on earth - stalactities and stalagmites. THIS RIVER IN A CAVE THAT MAKES THE REAL DIFFERENCE IS NOT EXPOUNDED NOR SHOWN WITH MORE DETAIL!
Thus, immediately after we emerged from this cave, I texted some knowledgeable people I know, and surfed the web for more information. Hah, there's a plethora of amazing things people ought to know!
First to titillate my lowly brain was/is the word "estuarine". Hmm, I know something about that. It's the most fertile kind of water with lots of living things -from fresh aquatic to marine animals and others in between- thriving amply together. Where and what are they on this river? It'd be grander to know them!
Well, we saw a tiny fishy fish barkada by this mouth of the cave. I wonder now.., are they salt-water or fresh-water fish? How far deep into the darkness of the cave or out unto the open ocean can they go?
Whereabouts did the Italian Explorers find that "Sirenia" thing? Is it within the publicly accessible area? If not, how deep away? Did they yet find a "syokoynia"? Hahaha me sirena eh.., so baka me syokoy din!
The same explorers also said that the salty water can go up to 6 kilometers deep into the darkness of the cave. They said they have evidence of "marine creatures into the deeper part of the cave". Can you show these during the tour? Surely all of them pass by this 'entrance'! What are those? Pasayan, Pagi, Pating? OMG me "jaws" in the underground river? Now, that should be the most exciting of tours. Duu!
There are fresh-water crocs and there are salt-water crocs. We also know that the Philippine Crocodile or "Crocodylus mindorensis" can thrive in both brackish and fresh water, and they can hide in caves or burrow in sandy beaches. Now, therefore, tell us, meron ba nyan sa cave and underground river na ito?
Hiyaaay! Don't tell us, that all of them have now relocated to the Crocodile Farm in the city?!
One more もう1つ isa pa 하나 더! This thing that the Italians saw should be shown to us tourists:
"...observed in May 2000, when we saw huge heaps of Ocypodidae larvae (ghost crab)". "...Their mass literally covered the walls for about half a metre from water level, for hundreds of metres. Many larvae could also be seen swimming in the water". Crabs, they probably taste good! They're delectable, right?
So the monkeys, very highly probably also enter this cave, right? They're called "crab-eating monkeys" (Macaca fascicularis philippensis) in the first place. Oh, lizards eat crabs too. And they're amphibians. So, they also enter this cave underground river? Now, where there are big lizards there'll also be bigger lizards, and biggest lizards, right? The biggest lizard? Croc? Buwaya! There must be crocs in that cave!
Oh my nanay ko madre mia 어머! ああ、私の！ But let's move on and out of this cave!
As our boat emerged from the underground river, I saw this beside of the cave's main entrance/exit:
May those names be marked in the gates of hell to ensure they enter that way hehehe! But if it was/is any consolation to my annoyed little brain, we can actually infer at how high the tides (and/or floods?) can reach on this part of the river, which should be bewildering enough. Surely, those idiots must have boarded boats or floating whatevers, on a high tide, for them to write, etch or carve those ugly names!
But, if you tell me, that the water level (tidal or otherwise) 'do not' or 'can not' reach that high anymore, then there must be something wrong somewhere in this our part of earth, right? That means the water level is permanently ebbing out?! Oh dear, oh dear.., then there will come a time that the underground river is no more? Oh my dear earth forgive us our sins..! What could it be caused by, climate change?
Seriously, back in the '80s, even up to early '90s, it was common knowledge that the few tourists (who were 'already' considered adventurous at that time) were to watch out for "high tide" when coming to this St. Paul Underground River, because boats (they were even small bancas in those days) could not pass thru the entrance during those times. How come we do not anymore hear about that handicap?
What? Lumaki yung butas? O hindi na gaanong tumataas ang tubig? Oh My Gino-o ko...
Anyway.., we were finally out of the cave and underground river, to a bight but still-raining world. Argh!
This 'pride umbrella'-wielding dude with an SLR said something to welcome us back. Staff? Maybe!
Under the rain, boatmen/staff were on-hand to assist us. The guy in black was next to row the boat!
There he was, ready to take passengers, while another boat enters, because we were already out!
And their cycle of the underground river tour repeats..!
But my story does not end yet! Walking back to the beach, for our motorboat to Sabang, we saw this:
And we also said "OMG West Philippine Sea what're you doing"? Relentless rain and a little rough sea!
Hey by the way, the sea water felt refreshingly warm under that heavy rain!
But, the skies did not seem to have any plans of stopping the rain, even as we arrived back at Sabang!
Boat crews put out (again) their giant yellow umbrella for us - those we see used by sidewalk vendors!
Ah, the good part.., we disembarked and told to proceed immediately to "Gusto Grill & Restaurant" for a warm and hefty buffet lunch (part of the tour package). This was already 2:20PM! Thankfully, no one of us felt really starved (just hungry hehehe) since we kept eating this and that, every step of the way!
The restaurant has a number of good enough and clean bathrooms where we all took our showers, to rinse off the salty sea and the rain from our royal bodies! And we all even changed to our preferred dry clothes before clambering back unto our vans. How and Why? Remember we passed by Aziza early in the morning but were not allowed to leave our bags? So, all things were with us in our respective vans!
But I still hate that woman. And we were going there, immediately after this underground river tour.
War freak mode, sugod to Aziza! That's my next story!
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