Trifter

If you are looking for water adventure and nature trips, try to visit one of the country’s water rafting hot spots, Cagayan de Oro City. It is located in the southern part of the Philippines specifically Mindanao and it is being tagged as the “City of Golden Friendship”. Well, the friendliest City and the rafting Capital in the Philippines, hmmm sounds good, what more can you ask for?

From Manila you will take a plane ride approximately 1 ½ hour of travel to reach this destination, you can take Philippine Airlines and Cebu Pacific which has 4 daily flights in this route. If you want to try rafting immediately after you got out from the plane, take the first flight, usually rafting starts at 7am and ends at 3pm, but the actual ride is about 3 hours. You can book your rafting adventure thru a travel agent like me or directly from the rafting operators, most likely those from Luzon and Visayas made their reservations thru a travel agent. Rafting fees starts at Php 1,000.00 for the beginners and Php 1,200.00 for advance and those rates are inclusive of lunch. Before you take the rafting adventure you will first sign the waiver contract that you let yourself take this very physical adventure and whatever accidents happen rafting operators are not held liable, thus white water rafting is often played for the adrenaline rush and this often becomes a problem for people and their own safety. White water rafting accidents have occurred but are not common so don’t panic, and for the entire adventure you will have a rafting guide.

Each raft can accommodate 6-8 persons plus the guide, if you choose rafting for beginners there is only 14 different levels of rapids, while the advance category has 21 rapids. It is not necessary to take the advance without having tried the beginner; you will choose what category you take. Along the rafting adventure you will then see different rock formations and very amazing views which you will admire for sure.

The entire trip is very tiring; I suggest you will bring something to eat like chips or bread because lunch will be serve after the adventure which is 3pm. The rafting adventure ends at the graduation rock, in which you will climb and jump on 20-30 feet high – a traditional rite for first timers. After that, lunch will be serve, which ends the rafting adventure in Cagayan de Oro. You may opt to stay another day for another adventure; actually there is more adventure which I will tackle in my next article, but this time it is in the neighboring municipality – Bukidnon.