Freediving in the Philippines. Day 8

There isn’t much to write about that day – we didn’t dive. Our team divided into two groups: the majority went to watch cockfights, while the four of us, including myself, returned to the waterfall. Cockfighting is one of the main attractions in the Philippines. It is a horrible, bloody spectacle; and I will let somebody else tell about it. I didn’t even want to look at it.

At the waterfalls Julia wanted to shoot a scene for her TV project. The original plan was to take two rafts: one for Julia and Tanya to go under the waterfall and the other one to film them from. But unfortunately, the place was packed with tourists. The only two rafts were full and many more people were waiting for their turn. So we had to be content with just one raft. While Julia and Tania were dressing up, I and another girl, Oksana, went under the fall to experience its hard shower once more. I took a camera with me and filmed the entire process, thanks to the fact that my little Sanyo could shoot in the water.

Then Julia and Tania took the raft, and Oksana filmed them from the shore. After the filming was over, we set off to climb higher into the mountains to reach the second and third waterfalls. They are much smaller, but the third waterfall adjoins a small lake. We took note of its unspoiled natural beauty during our canyoning adventure three days earlier and wanted to come back since then. Julia thought that the lake scene would make an excellent addition to her show. Unfortunately, that place was full of people too. The serene beauty of the Philippine’s nature was disturbed; the spell was broken; and filming made no sense. We made a stop at a small restaurant beside the lake to taste local coconuts.

Coconuts grow right there on the trees. They are offered to tourists on the spot: torn off a tree, then the top is chopped off with a huge knife, and a straw is inserted into the hole. Fresh coconut milk has a different taste than canned. For some reason, canned coconut milk is very sweet and sugary. In fact, too sweet for me. On the contrary, fresh coconut milk is only mildly sweet, and I quite enjoyed it. Once the milk is drunk, the coconut is cut in half. Then with a spoon or just a scraper made of the shell of the same coconut, you can rake out the inner white layer of coconut pulp, which is also very tasty.

It was getting late so we made for the hotel. On our way back we passed a small hydroelectric power plant, which supplied electricity to the village near the waterfall. Just above the falls there is the dam, which entraps part of the river’s flow and directs the water to the turbines through pipes. Our guide told us that when the turbines are turned off, the waterfall becomes larger.

When we returned to the hotel, it was already dark. And we were surprised to find that the others hadn’t returned yet. Obviously the cockfights dragged on. But finally all gathered together and we had a dinner. And after dinner, in conclusion of the day, we had another freediving theory lesson.

The end of the eighth day.

The text, the photos and the video © 2010 Sergey Stadnik
The music compositions used in the video are: “Twin Peaks Theme” by DJ Dado, “Straight Lines” by Silverchair, “Too Much Rain” by ATB.