One of my mountaineering friends (RJ) shared an event on Facebook and it caught my interest because RBM already went over there and unfortunately I wasn’t able to go because of the bad weather.

Well, I was caught in between which event should I go with, because my training class (Tourism Promotion Services or TPS)  had planned to do round Tablas on the same day (July 21th), but I got help from above when Sir Gab had a prior commitment in the morning so the whole plan of TPS will not materialize.

As planned, the group meets up at Children Paradise at 6:00 AM. I was a late comer, but they waited for me and while preparing to hit the road, a classmate and friend (MJ) from TPS went near me, it turns out she went to the training center, but it was closed and she happened to see me, so I asked her if she wanted to go with us. She’d like to, so I informed RJ about it, and they find someone from the group for her to back ride.

Brgy. Libertad is subdivided into four sitios, and one of them is Palati, which was my destination the day after my TPS group visited Mainit Falls, it is the most interior part of the Barangay and its name means second growth forest. Palati Falls is located in Libertad, but our jump-off was in Sitio Boliganay of Brgy.  Panique, a barangay after Libertad if you are coming from the town. The road to Boliganay is under-construction so as expected, it is muddy during the rainy season, if you don’t want to be stuck in the mud you really need to drive carefully.

When we arrived at the jump-off, we did only a short prayer and there was no stretching because the young guys were saying not to stretch anymore. We started walking up hill, gladly MJ went with me or else I have to walk a little bit slower to walk with the sweeper who’s accompanying the hikers that were a bit slow.

The trail was muddy, it is combined of uphill and downhill. There was no clearing so you can’t appreciate the view that much, the sky is gloomy. Nevertheless, all of us enjoyed the abundance of water in the streams, as well as the presence of guavas along the way.

MJ and I were in the middle together with two highschool students who are just a few meters away from us, ahead of us were my fellow RBM members.  We reached the point where we are not able to see the first group, we have waited a bit where the two highschool students met us, and since MJ and I were  both impatient waiting for the last group so we head on and followed the trail leaving behind the two young girls.

(MJ #feelingtired)

We reached a place where there are three houses, where we have asked where to go, the woman in the last house informed us that there was a path going to Palati Falls behind the smokehouse, so we did and I carefully examined the mud, and I was sure it was the right path since I am seeing fresh footprints of shoes in the soil and when we climb upwards, it was all grass and the footprints were gone, I looked around and found an almost hidden path behind the thick cogon grasses. We traversed it and we both realized where moving away from the sound of swift flowing water, we end up to a small shaft with a pig tied in the yard and dogs barking at us.  We called out, but no one is answering so we decided to return to the smokehouse, and there we found two paths. One is going to the left and the other one is going upward, but we are sure when we passed by at that point that there was no other path other than the path we took. You know, what is bothering me, when we passed by a coconut leaf fell from the tree on the left side, I don’t know what does it mean. If someone tried to warn us that we are heading to a wrong path or someone blocked the left path so we will choose the path upward?

Anyway, we decided to try the left path and we end up in a rocky stream, I have told MJ that maybe if we follow the stream we will not be lost, since the water will be surely coming from the falls. Maybe due to fear and excitement, I slid on the rocks not just once, but twice, and the second one was almost fatal because I slid into the water with my phone.  It scares the hell out of me because I don’t know how deep the water was, as we continue to walk the rocky stream I have seen people ahead of us, giving us a relief that we are on the right path to the falls.

When we are nearing RJ meet us half-way, he said they just arrived as well and he is about to look for us because he didn’t see us around. I have told him, we got lost.  The first group ahead of us were sorry that they left us when I told them we are just behind them, they also said they also almost get lost and they asked one of them to check the path upward if it is the right path or not, I didn’t inform them anymore about the coconut leaf that fell because my mind is not on its proper place, I was feeling scared, nervous and unwell for my phone. It is the second Asus Selfie phone I accidentally dropped in the water, the first one died after it swam in the salt water when it was not a year old yet and this second one is just less than two months old and it swam in the water too.

We reached Palati Falls for about over two hours, including the time where MJ and I got lost. If you walk faster you can reach Palati Falls in one and one half hours.

Palati Falls was on its beauty when we decided to visit it, there was a lot of water because of non-stop rain on the past few days. We rested a bit and decided to eat our lunch together, afterwards endless photo shoots.  We stayed for about an hour and descended together. We took a different trail going home, we traversed the river heading to the dam site where heavy rain fell on us, making us all soak.

Palati Falls isn’t for the frail of heart, but seeing  it with  your own eyes is very fulfilling so you must see it once in your life .  You can hire a motorcycle from downtown town and it is up to you to haggle, but ₱40-₱50.00 is enough to reach the Barangay Hall of Libertad, where you can ask for help or guide, or if you need someone to guide you, don’t hesitate to contact me I can maybe help you to find one depending on the availability of my fellow mountaineers. The jump-off is located at Sitio, Boliganay of Brgy. Panique, Odiongan, Romblon. You must remember that hiking to Palati Falls takes about two hours,  the trail is slippery when raining so wear proper shoes to avoid meeting an accident.

It has been over ten days since the training for Tourism Promotion Services has started, a lot of things had happened and I have learned a few things from it. A few, because being a traveler and a blogger I knew most of our topics.

At the end of our training, we are required to create an output as a solo or as a group. I choose the group despite that I knew I will be just the one who will do the technical work. We have to create a video or a magazine style or pamphlet promoting tourist destination in our town.

One of the tourist destinations I or we included in our output is the Mainit Falls in our barangay.  We went there as a group on July 20th, with the help of my younger cousin as a guide, it was a bit struggle to cross the river because it has been raining for a week and the rain has just stopped that afternoon.

Mainit Falls is about 40 minutes from the main road, the falls have been popular because of its warm water.  When we arrived there were kids enjoying the water, they are still wearing their uniforms and have their bags with them. It looks like they decided to swim at the falls before heading home.

We only took pictures and videos for our documentation and head home, I went nearby the water falls to have my photo taken that’s why I got soaked, I have expected a good picture, but when I check my phone, my classmate whom I have asked to take my photo zoomed it out, getting only me and not the waterfalls as the background (lol). Gladly, I have asked another classmate to take another photo of me which is seen above.

Mainit Falls isn’t that hard to reach, all you have to do is get/hire a motorcycle in town, you can find them in front of Children Paradise or  just across the Odiongan Tourist Information Center beside the Odiongan Town Plaza.   Fare isn’t costly,  ₱20.00 per person and if you are alone ₱30-50.00 will already make the driver smile.  Tell the driver to bring you to Brgy. Pato-o, Sitio Mainit or you can directly tell them  that you are going to Mainit Falls. Mainit Falls is just 40 minutes walk from the main road.  If you don’t know where to start your trek you can either ask a local or go directly to Barangay Hall of Pato-o so they can help you out.

Today should be the start of the training for Tourism Promotion Services but it was cancelled again due to bad weather (a typhoon is expecting to landfall inside Philippines territory today) or should I say because of disappointing numbers of trainees who showed up. As I have blogged previously, only ten trainees attended the orientation last week and today that ten trainees, became six and what’s funny the sixth trainee was a new one, which means out of ten only five of us returned to the training center.

We’ve just submitted the requirements, do chit chatting, watched television, took selfies and laugh. It was quite fun because we already developed camaraderie at each other, my hesitation of returning to university to take the educational unit so I can teach if I got lucky was gone, if I can only enrol right away I will, but I guess I have to wait until the next semester.

We are permitted to go home, but we can’t go because it is raining hard, we waited for the rain to stop a bit and left through a public vehicle. In town, I bought food for lunch at a restaurant and waited at the front of the town signage. My mother asked my BIL to pick me up after he went home from school, he left early, but came just on time because it turns out the motorcycle died along the way, I guess it is from the cold weather brought by the cold rain.  We stopped by at my sister’s work place so she could fix the vehicle and the three of us went to the gasoline station to fueled up and then went to Bread and Butter Bakeshop to buy some snacks, I have ordered eight of their burgers, two siopao’s and a 3.5 liters of black forest ice cream, but my mother asked us through messenger why we wanted ice cream when it was raining hard, so my sister returned the ice cream and I decided to get three of their caramel delights, which one of them was brought by my sister to work.

As expected, it was a bit hard going home because some dickheads destroyed the concrete road when the alternative route isn’t finished yet, and when they have no plans to start reconstructing it right away and most especially when they knew it was wet season already. The roads they have destroyed for reconstruction have been sitting like that for almost a month already.