Underground River

For our last day on the island of Palawan, we decided to do something special. We decided to visit the Underground River. 

The Underground River is located about 30 miles north of Puerto. The park has a limestone karst mountain landscape with an 5 mile navigable underground river. A distinguishing feature of the river is that it winds through a cave before flowing directly into the West Philippine Sea. It includes major formations of stalactites and stalagmites, and several large chambers.

I had heard about the Underground River the last time I was in the Philippines but I never had a chance to visit. This time around, I made it a point to try and visit, especially because on November 11, 2011, it was chosen as one of the New7Wonders of Nature.

So LeAnne and I made reservations and early Wednesday morning we headed to the Underground River. When we woke up, it was pouring rain. According to Merilyn, it had been raining nonstop in Puerto for the last 2 weeks and that we were lucky we were visiting the "Underground River". lol. Well, I wasn't much looking forward to spending the day outside in the rain, so LeAnne and I prayed that it would stop raining, just long enough for us to enjoy our time at the Underground River. As we drove the, much to my surprise, hour drive there, it continued to rain. But as we neared the National Park, it stopped raining and the sun came out. Praise God!

 When we arrived, we took a boat to this little island where the River is located. Then you hike through the woods for a bit and then you come to the River. The cavern where you begin the tour was gorgeous! The water was so pretty. At this point you have to put on Lifejackets and Hardhats and then you climb into a boat with a tour guide.

It is really dark inside the cave (obviously) so the person at the front of the boat has a Flood Light and thats what you use to see all the different rock formations inside. I was actually very impressed, they had SOO many different formations of rock that strongly resembled numerous things: For example there was a Candle, the Last supper, Side profile of Jesus' face, a naked woman, etc. It was very unique. There were also many bats inside...that was kinda creepy. lol.

The River is 5 miles long, however, they are only allowed to bring you .8 miles inside. Its probably, ultimately due to a time constraint. That way they can get tourists in and out as quickly as possible. But anyways, at the .8 mile mark they turn around and take you back where you started from. From here we headed back to the shore to catch our boat back. LeAnne and I really wanted to swim, but our tour guide said that we had to head back for lunch, but that we could probably swim there.

We headed back to the mainland, where they had a buffet lunch served. It would have been REALLY good....had we not been vegetarians...lol. LeAnne and I were able to enjoy some rice, greens, and bananas....Delicious! lol. Afterwards, we asked the other members of our group, how long we were staying? They answered "I'm pretty sure we're leaving once we're done eating". We were really bummed because, as I stated before, we really wanted to swim. So we finished our lunch quickly and went to the beach, just to take pictures. But of course, we couldn't stop there and we ended up playing in the water for awhile. The waves were HUGE and we were so tempted to go farther out to face them, but we didn't want to be soaking wet on the drive home, so we contained ourselves.

LeAnne had a bit of an accident. lol, jk.

When everyone else was done eating, the tour guide came to retrieve us from the beach (whoops...lol) and we headed back to the shuttle for our ride to Puerto. Right as we got to the shuttle, it started to rain again. God is WAY to good to us. In fact, He then turned the rain off again when we stopped to take pictures at this cute little gift shop.

He even intervened for us, once again. On the drive back, I started getting the money together to pay for our trip and I realized I was short by 500 php. I tried to text Merilyn to meet us at the pick up spot with the rest of our money, but my phone ran out of load (All phones in the Philippines are 'pay as you go'). So here we were, no phone to text for help and not enough money to pay for the trip. I didn't know what to do. LeAnne and I prayed until we reached our stopping point. When we got there the tour guide informed us that since we booked our trip through someone else that we were suppose to give our money to Merilyn to give to the other person. Praise God! I had no idea how He was going to help us with that one, but He got us through! It was amazing! 

Afterwards, we stayed in town and made a couple last visits to NCCC and Ima's :). Of course, by this time, it was pouring rain once again. So we spent the night running from place to place in the pouring rain. It was actually really fun. It was the perfect way to spend our last day in Palawan.

"...All things were created through Him and for Him."

~Colossians 1:16b