A Memorable Trip to Cagayan de Oro

My mom, dad, younger sister, and I spent 2 days in Cagayan de Oro for New Year’s. It was a very spur-of-the-moment trip. My dad needed to buy a car part, and my younger sister decided that we all tagged along. So she booked us round trip flights, and reserved 2 rooms at a lodge near the airport.

I’ve always wanted to visit CDO. It is well -known for its whitewater rafting and it’s just about an hour away to Bukidnon which houses the Dahilayan Adventure Park. The park is well-known for being Asia’s longest dual zipline at 840m.

I’ve always thought that when I come there, it would be a trip with friends, being their photographer as they take on all the adventures with me just sitting in the sidelines watching them (I know, boring right?). But as it turns out, I had to try all of it because my sister just wouldn’t take no for an answer. I’m glad I did because it felt great.

This is one memorable trip because I conquered so many fears. My fear of water, my fear of heights, etc etc. I even enjoyed whitewater rafting and would not hesitate to do it all over again!

Our first day was kind of blah. We arrived there at about 7am, checked-in, and slept until lunch time as were sort of still hung over from the mini drinking sesh that happened on New Year’s eve. And then we headed to SM which was near where we stayed, ate lunch and watched a movie. While we were waiting for our movie (as we were two hours early), Dimple (my younger sister) and I decided to go to the arcade and play Dance Revolution, another first for me. We sucked initially, but got the hang of it after a few tries.

We watched One More Try. My dad was against watching at first because they were all showing Tagalog movies, but after watching, he was the one who enjoyed the movie the most while the rest of us were just blah about it. Hahaha..

Our second day was the more hectic one. My parents went off to Osmena where they looked for car parts, while my sister and I booked a whitewater rafting course in the morning. We were picked up by a jeepney, and we were grouped together with a balikbayan family. It was about a 30-min ride to the site. When we got there, we underwent orientation about basic paddling, and safety precautions should anything untoward happen, like maybe getting thrown out of the boat (which happened to me by the way, FUCKING AWESOME!).

We took the beginners course which included 14 rapids, 3 of which are critical, or so the guide said. The whole ride was approximately 3 hours. The view was magnificent. We were paddling on the Cagayan River which is the river that separates Cagayan from Bukidnon. It was raining as well and all you could hear were birds chirping, water gushing, and our voices.

We stopped for a minute on the still waters for a dip. My sister went for it, while I stayed in the raft as I had already taken an unexpected swim in one of the rapids earlier. Teehee. (Funny thing, before I took that fall, my sister and I switched places because she was complaining that her butt was getting numb. If we hadn’t switch, she would’ve been the one to be thrown into the water, and not me. Pfft.)

In the afternoon, we booked a van to take us to Dahilayan Adventure Park to try the zipline. It was a long, but beautiful drive to Bukidnon. Beautiful because we passed by the Del Monte plantation and we were all in awe– too many corns and pineapples! And it was a foggy cold afternoon too. It was like being in Baguio. Fog everywhere!

When we got to the park, I was having second thoughts. I really didn’t wanna do it anymore because for me, the adventure of whitewater rafting was enough for the day. I didn’t want to go through another heart-stopping activity. But again, my sister talked me into it. I almost backed out of it when we were about to be launched but to no avail. I just sucked it up and went for it. Hahaha..

After that, we didn’t have time to go visit places in the city. So we just went to a pasalubong store to get souvenirs (I didn’t get any because the store had limited options. Meh) and headed back to the lodge to get rest and prepare for our flight early the next morning.

I never imagined that a 2-day trip could be this awesome. But it waaaaaaaaaaaas! I can never say that enough. Here are pictures from the trip (in no particular order):