Canyoning

So canyoning was my second and final action-adventure tour from the Philippines. It was cool. I went with a couple who were around my age, with more experience than I had, which was none.

We drove to the site and did some hiking towards the river. Whenever I go hiking, I always wish I hiked more, but I didn't fall too far behind. Partway there, we were given a demonstration on how to use the harnesses we'd put on (the kind that go around the waist and thighs) with the rope to rappel down the waterfalls. I was kind of nervous, especially since it kind of hurt my shoulder to feed the rope through the rings and step back. It ended up being okay.

Our first waterfall was wicked tall. I think it was like 20 meters high, at least. The guides set us up one at a time with the rope, and we went down individually, one guide first, then the three of us, and the second guide last (Mario and Eric were our guides this time). We weren't allowed to jump in the rappels, which was fine with me. We were supposed to walk down, with our feet wide apart. The rock face was curved, with a wide, somewhat weak sheet of water on one side, and a stronger, narrower fall on the other. I tried to keep to the left, where it was safer, but then I noticed my feet were too close together. Dumbly, I tried widening my stance, which made me step into the stronger stream, which made me fall.

But that's what the harness is for. I just lost my feet, and swung into the rock face in front of me. It took me a second to get my bearings again, but all I had to do was push the wall and I was able to right myself again, and slowly walk down the rest of the wall. I was scared.

I think this is from the top of the first one. It doesn't give much indication of the height, but trust me.

I think the second one was really quick and small, just basically a groove in the land that we kind of slid down, so the others didn't take any pictures of it.

Each waterfall (five total) had its own challenges and scariness, like not being able to see where I was going, awkward positions, height, etc. 

I don't remember the details of these next photos so well. I think this must have been a reasonably straightforward waterfall, even though the rock face looks a little tricky near the bottom of the frames. 

The best part was the highest waterfall, 30 meters, and the lower half was just a free-hang. I think this one the one in which we first had to climb down into like a little cave, and had to put each hand and each foot in turn in precisely the right spot or it wouldn't work. I messed up a little and ended up pretty much hanging upside down because I couldn't see the right place to put my foot or didn't understand how to move my body or something. It was very silly.

I took a moment to just kind of hang out and relax for a sec, then slowly fed the rope up and lowered myself down. Then of course I had some trouble when the falls met up with the bottom, and Mario was trying to help me out, and got my foot tangled in the rope, but didn't realize it at first. Heh. I got down safely eventually, though.

Here was the last one, I think, just a quick walk down a groove into a nice pool where we found some kids playing hooky. Not that it being a quick walk down a groove made it any less scary.

In conclusion, this was fun. I got some rope burn on my waist, and a few scrapes and bruises, but totally worth it.

By the way, my finger is still fucked up from the first trip, river climbing. It sucks.