kismetkissed: Applauding Palawan: Part 2 - Spelunking at Ugong Rock

Our day started early and even the non-morning person (read: me) in the group woke up willingly, way ahead of the alarm, for the day's activity. Again, I haven't exhaustively researched about the Underground River and I had zero idea of what it looked like but I was a 100% sure that it was going to be amazing. Expectations-less traveling is soooo much more better. I have soo much to tell and I have sooo many pictures so I'm splitting this into two posts

When our ride arrived it turned out that we were the last ones in. There were 8 other people there. There was an elderly couple up front that we will call Mommy and Daddy, a group of four girl friends that we will call Cliff Hangers and a sweet Chavacano couple that we will call Ate and Kuya and then the four of us. Our tour guide was Ate Malou and Kuya Pat was driving us. This is my first time to be vacationing with an actual tour guide, I'm more of a DIY person.

I was actually thinking that it will only be a 30-min to an hour ride to where the river is and then we can come back before after lunch. Needless to say I was absolutely wrong. It was a 2.5 to 3.5-hour ride plus we have to wait for the collective time on our permits(you need permits to visit the underground river, you cant just come in there unannounced) basing on the entire group's time so our estimated slot was at 3:30PM. I was like whoa, we left at 7AM for a late afternoon ride?! I kept calm and let the "Surprise Me" mindset take over and boy was I surprised!

Anyways, back to the trip. We stopped by Ugong Cave. This is a natural limestone formation that was formed millions of years ago. This was developed with the help of the ABS-CBN Foundation to provide the locals a livelihood, also a way to divert them from resorting to deforestation and poaching the endangered wildlife, a very good idea in my opinion!

When we got here, Ate Malou, our tour guide, said that we are welcome to do spelunking, caving and zipline in the area. When I heard the word spelunking I immediately thought of Bruce Wayne in Batman Begins and I started feeling like batgirl. Haha! Energized like the energizer bunny we marched off to do the daring spelunking. Of course gears are in order.

We thought it was just going to be a short trip but we were wrong again. We have taken too many pictures before we even got to the real thing, by the time we got on top, one cam's already running low on battery. Talk about overexcited tourists.

Here's some of the pics that we talk. Disclaimer: Im no pro so my shots are not always great.

This is a very pretty view from the ground. It remind me so much of some scenic view on some cartoons from my childhood. This has got to be our 50th picture and we haven't even reached the actual cave.

This is one of the first things we saw. This formation was caused by the ocean crashing into the rocks millions of years ago. BTW, have I mentioned that this limestone structure is still growing every year? Amazing right?

This is the what you will see at the top of the short tunnel.

I wont be posting much of the actual spelunking - we were too busy by then and the rest our climb pics screamed THIRSTY. Let's just skip to the beautiful part - the amazing view from the peak. Green, green all over and I love. My inner forest fairy is dancing and jumping out of happiness at their environment's very healthy state. We even saw a century old tree just along the road!