PART 1.2 – SAMAR ISLAND, RP – 29 September – 1 October 2023
The last three days of our stay in Samar was action packed. A trip down a nearby multi-pitch creek and then two days at Joni’s coconut plantation. We definitely needed a rest day after this!
Friday 29 September – Bangon Falls
So we were heading back up the dreaded Pipeline Track, but today I’m not carrying a heavy pack, and I know exactly how far we had to walk so it felt like a piece of cake walk, not the horribly humid walk up to Central Cave when we first came.
Before long we are at the water treatment plant and the porters had tied the rope to the metal infrastructure so we could abseil down into the creek.
Anna on the first pitch. As a nod to our experience, Joni didn’t have a belay rope attached to us, so we all felt quite at home, although he did insist we wear a life preserver.
In all there were 8 abseils, although we didn’t get photos of them all.
Me on one of the pitches, I actually swam up to the end to see if I could get under the waterfall.
Another pitch, for this one they rigged a safety line to get across the cliff face.
The view downsteam.
One of the waterfalls, there was also a cave nearby that Anna explored.
This was a cruisy canyon, the two porters that Joni had retrieved the ropes and then walked along the side of the canyon to set up the next rope. We ended the canyon very close to the village where we had started, all in all about 4 or 5 hours and a good, easy day out.
Saturday 30 September and Sunday 1 October – Lobo Cave & Kamanaog Cave
On our first day in Samar, when we were talking with Joni about what we’d do, we had a “spare” day at the end, and so instead of just doing a bounce trip in Lobo Cave, Joni suggested that we go to his coconut plantation where we would do Lobo & Kamanaog Caves and spend the night in the hut he has at the plantation. Sounded like a good solution for our spare day. I’d done Lobo Cave before so was expecting it to be a bit of a doddle – how wrong was I?
We met up at Joni’s office, then Joni, his wife and 11yr old son (Trex) plus luggage took tricycles to the bus station and hopped onto a bus. We de-bussed at a junction and met up with the two porters with motorcycles, then headed up into the village.
From the village, we headed along a ridge (coconut and pineapple plantations off the side of the ridge), and eventually descended to Joni’s plantation.
After negotiating our way down the slippery path we arrived at the hut (to the right is another structure where the coconuts are “cooked” to get the copra out of them).
Once at the hut, Joni’s wife prepared a delicious lunch for us and then Joni told us to have a nap and after that we’d head off to the cave.
We started to the cave at 4pm, much later than I expected, but I wasn’t worried as I’ve said a few times, I’ve done this cave before and knew it wasn’t a long trip. After a 20minute walk, we entered the cave. Photos are in no particular order, and all of them are either from Omar or Jim (thanks guys).
Nice rim pools.
Part of the streamway.
Finally we’re in the water.
At some point we had to do this downclimb, which is easy at the start but a bit of a pain at the end.
We had to swim across a pool to get to this small climb up.
Nice photo guys!
We had a hand line for this climb up, was still intimidating for me (I think that’s me going up).
Nice section of streamway.
More of the streamway.
Nice rim pools and cool birds bath type formations.
It was around about this time, we’re approaching the end of the cave and an entry/exit for bats. And there were thousands and thousands of them. And lots of guano!
And then we’re swimming in a streamway that had lots of bat guano in it, one had to be very careful to keep your mouth out of the water. The smell was awful. It wasn’t like this the last time we were here, much more water, and a flow, so we didn’t notice the guano then.
Finally, we’re out of the cave and leaving the bats behind and it’s getting dark.
Instead of a bounce trip like the last one, we would doing a through trip and going to Kamanaog cave. I was pretty tired by now and frankly had difficulty putting one foot in front of the other, AND we were going up hill.
We got to the entry to the cave and I said “I’ll just wait here at the entrance for you guys to come back”. “Ah, no, can’t do that” says Joni “it’s a through trip to get to the river near the plantation”. So, after a snack we set off.
The cave was relatively short, he did say that, but it had 2 climbs in it (and you all know how much I hate climbs). Big thanks to Jim and Omar getting me up over some of those refrigerator sized rocks, virtually dragging me over! Eventually we were climbing up to the exit, and out into the dark rainforest. I could hear a creek flowing down below and I thought “good, we must be close to the hut”. So, we started walking down the creek, Anna was smart, she had a walking stick. I was so tired I didn’t even think of picking up a stick, consequently, I was walking in the dark, down a creek where I couldn’t see the bottom and was really, really slow. After an hour or so, I asked how much longer to the hut (always an indication of me getting to the end of my reserves), I thought someone said “5 minutes” but obviously not because half an hour later we were still in the creek. At one point when Anna and I both slipped over, we laid in the creek and decided we weren’t going any further.
I think the porter must have dragged me up from laying down in the stream. In my defense, I had been canyoning/caving for 5 days in a row!
Eventually, we reached a spot in the creek where we could get out, it appears that we were right at the entrance to Lobo cave, so we’d done a big circle around a mountain. We dragged ourselves out of the creek and trudged along the footpad to the hut, where Joni’s wife greeted us with cold drinks and tea, followed by a delicious dinner. I cleaned myself up and crawled under the mosquito net and was immediately asleep.
Next morning we were back in the creek and walking downstream.
This sort of walking wasn’t that bad, no rocks to fall over, I could even lay down and float if I wanted to.
After about 30 minutes walking downstream, we got to a part of the creek that had places to sit down and Joni went up a hill to get mobile reception, so he could summon the 2 outriggers which would take us back to the village where we started.
The outrigger dropped us off and we made our way up to the street. I was hoping for one of those amazing fried bananas that we had the last time but, sadly, as soon as we got onto the street the bus came and we had to embark. Never mind, when we went down to Iloilo and the Omma bush camp EJ was making a batch of them, so I got to have them there, AND, as many as I could eat LOL.
So, back to Catbalogan, the next day was a canyoning day (or multi pitch creek) for Jim, Omar and Anna but some scratches on my leg looked like they might be infected (probably from the bat guano), so I decided to stay out of potentially germy water and spent the day resting.
The following day we were on the bus very early so that we could travel up to Tacloban to catch our flight to Manila and then Iloilo.
It was a great trip to Samar, a big thanks to Jim for organising it, so much work behind the scenes, and you were so laid back about everything, much appreciated. And thank you Omar and Anna for being such agreeable travel companions. Also. our guide Joni and his family were amazing, so accommodating. So, where to next? wait and see!