Today's adventure took up into the mountains again but this time farther in to Eden Nature Park. Two vans shuttled us through the city and up the mountainous road passing lush greenery and lots of coconut trees. I'm guessing we were passing the plantations, but there were a lot of little villages on the side of the road offering fruits and other goods. There were also several nicer homes. Many of the homes seemed to be a mixture of the woven plants in a beautiful design and cement blocks. I was wondering if the woven part was just a facade on top of wood or cement, but you could see sometimes through the weaving or that it was starting to sag. A lot of buildings look like they are sagging. It makes me think of buildings in the states that boarded up with warnings to stay away, but yet here, people seem to be living in them...or at least I think.
Often times when driving through a little village you'd see people sitting out together talking or little kids running along the side playing with each other. We passed over a few rivers as well. Part of me wanted to go walk through the beauty of it all, part of me was concerned with finding crocodiles or snakes! Due to watching too many Survivor episodes filmed in the Philippines that has a snake in practically every other shot, I feel like there is a snake lurking behind every branch or in every bush (and partly due to the fact I unknowingly stepped over a tiny venomous viper on a hike in Costa Rica...all three of us had stepped over him curled up on a leaf, blending in perfectly, until the tour guide at the back saw him, snapped pictures for us, then took a stick and threw him off the trail).
We made it to the park and the humorous part was as soon as we drove up and saw the pretty little signs for Eden, we also saw signs, several of them, warning us that dogs, cats, and cobras were not allowed in the park. Since I'm guessing that owning a pet cobra is not too common around here, I guess they found it funny to include this venomous beast, but it does serve as a reminder that the Philippines has a spitting cobra.
First things first, like all things Filipino, we ate a buffet lunch. Nourishment and communion over food seem to be top most importance. Not a bad thing in my mind...but maybe bad for the figure. The food was not distinctly Filipino, but the dessert was. I had a halo halo (mix-mix) and then many loved the ube, yam dessert, but it wasn't my favorite. The banquet hall was draped in long swaths of colorful cloth that reached across the roofline and then hung down the wall where it was knotted twice at the bottom in a way that gave pretty puffs of color.
Outside the window, we could watch small zip lines of sorts. They were basically a rope swing that had a disc to sit on connected onto a few wires that held the seat a few feet above the ground. You swung back and let the slider on top zoom you several yards to the end, where in some cases it snapped you upward, like a swing. Little kids were having a great time on it, so it's nothing dangerous, just more fun than the average swing would be. I went out to watch Chris' little cousins play on them. The weather was nice and cool up here in the mountains and not so humid. It was quite pleasant.
Chris came out and we challenged each other to a race on the mini zip lines, so I did my best, but I think his weight beat me out by a nose, but my rope snapped me upward more than his before sending me forward and coming to a halt. We grabbed our ropes and dragged them back up to the starting point. The rest of the family came out, tried a few rounds, then we left, stopped at the bathrooms and giving me a chance to snap a few pictures of some peacocks (I'm assuming female since they don't hold the beauty we think of with a peacock).
Part of the family wanted to do the Skycycle and zipline. Not me! Heights are certainly not my thing. I could do a zipline if I didn't have to climb up so high and step up off into empty space (which you may be thinking is the point, but I'm imagining stepping off and just going down a hillside - kind of like you do on a ski lift...I could do that). There is no way I'd want to climb on top of a bike, even if it is attached to a line above and below you, and pedal across the vast open sky. At least a hipline is fast like a roller coaster...there's little time to really be scared. I did a tight rope walk at 30 ft for a class I was in that took us on a ropes course. That was bad enough....this was higher and much longer.
Since clearly not everyone feels the same way I do, Chris, his sisters, and a cousin decided to go. Another cousin did the hipline. It took at least an hour of waiting before they got their turn. I recorded as they shot out across the sky on their bikes (of course strapped into a harness with safety helmets on). Coming back I took some pictures and zoomed in on Chris' face. There had been a race of who could get across first, which Chris did not win, although I think he actually took some time to look around him...might as well if you do that kind of thing you probably do it in part because you'd like the view from up there. Chris admitted that it was pretty dang scary. Yeah, I might have passed out up there, at least lost my lunch...maybe died of a heart attack. But, they all made it back down safe and sound...of course. 
It was pretty up there, while waiting I looked at the little purple flowers, white flowers, and there were tons of pretty yellow flowers that looked like daisies. There were tall flowering trees of pink as well.
We drove back and I drank in the sights. Christine and I tried to get pictures of the town as we rode by in the car, taking in every last detail of life in this city. Along the river you see it lined with little homes, that look like little more than shacks. You might look down a street and see it busy and filled with life. There were some really nice buildings right next to some not so nice buildings. It was indiscriminate where things were built, which I learned later is due to no zoning rules. I think I have a hard time making sense of things because we have lots of zoning - residential, commercial, urban, suburban, your nice areas seem separated from your poorer areas...here it's all just one big mix. You may see a very nice home behind gates right next to a shack that looks like it's about to fall apart. You may have a great big fancy mall, and then a row of slum housing just down the street, throw in a small strip of brand new fancy condos.
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| Funny sign - It says "Peeing not allowed, it smells" |
Shortly after arriving back it was time for dinner at Tio Coco's. They had prepared a huge seafood feast for us. Again, seafood lover's dream, which I am not. I will eat some fish though, so I found some very good dishes, starting with a pomelo salad. Pomelo is similar to a grapefruit, but consists of these juicy little tubes that form each slice. It doesn't have the bitterness of a grapefruit - I love this new fruit. At first I was afraid of the salad, it had this brown grainy thing with it, but I tried it and it was delightfully coconut type sauce or puree cooked and sweet and I think there were tender chunks of fish in it as well. It was such a good salad. I also really enjoyed the fried sweet and sour fish. There was some squid served as well, but that I didn't go there. Garlic rice accompanied the meal, which I love. There was a plethora of plates with mounds of seafood, certainly more than we could eat. There was also some pad thai, but I'm not a peanut fan either, so that wasn't real appetizing.
After dinner, I went to get a massage at the place in the hotel complex - Totally Dedicated Massage. She put me in this little curtained area on a bed. I lay face up as I had asked for a foot massage. I thought foot massage would mean just that...feet only. Instead it was a whole leg massage and very few minutes spent on the feet. It was quite painful too as she worked on the IT band area and up my shins. I think it was a good massage, but not so relaxing. Still, for around 125 pesos (like three American dollars), I can't complain. Massages are really cheap here.
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