Our Tour in Villa Escudero Philippines

This was our first time to experience rafting, although we tried boating once on a man-made lagoon from our past travels. You could have a look if you are interested Simple Joys of Life. This is something different as it was an actual river. The river looks very long and we did not know where it leads to. There has been some drizzle that day and we were a bit worried that it might rain while we were out there. Not really worried about getting wet but more worried about my camera as my Lumix is not weather sealed. Anyway this is another part of our tour in this amazing resort. If you missed it feel free to revisit Waterfall Buffet and A Pink Church in a Plantation Resort.

So much things to do in this place and I would say this was the most exciting part of our visit. I even think that I was more excited than my daughter. I don't get much physical activity as I am always stuck behind the desk at work. It is not often that I get to row a bamboo raft on a river.

Earlier I was already scouting the area and found this floating platform with rails. Some people might be using this platform while swimming in the river. Yes I know the river is green and who would want to swim in a green river. Maybe it is due to the algae that make the color, but I was told that the flowing water is clean. It is the same river that flows down to the iconic restaurant.

We had to wait for a couple of minutes until some of the visitors returned. After a while our bamboo rafts finally docked. I was a bit worried thinking if the rafts were safe or if it was well made. Bamboos are pretty strong and I guess nothing to worry about.

They only allowed only two people on one raft, and for safety everyone needed to wear a life vest before boarding. The nice staff assisted us with the vest and advised us not to take it off and remain seated while on the raft as the water was around 30 feet deep. Whoa that is a deep river best to do what he says.

First on the raft was my wife and son. I'm sure that my son could manage maneuvering the raft around.

Some had trouble controlling the raft and ended up crashing on each other. But it was easy to get back on track with a simple push to the right direction.

As I expected my son was a natural and they were on their way.

Now it was our turn, our own raft and our own adventure. We felt like explorers on an expedition to discover new places. The trees surrounding the river greeted us and added to the drama that unfolds before us.

On the left side are riverside units that you could rent if you are staying overnight. An overnight stay in this unit would cost around 6,500 pesos or $122.53 during week days. There is also an air conditioned unit that would cost 8,500 pesos or $160.24 which is only for two persons. Additional persons would cost you 2,300 pesos or $43.36.

Not knowing what to expect we rowed our way down the river.

As we went a bit further we could hear different sounds of wild life around us. We heard different sounds of birds but could not see where they were. My daughter mimicked the sound of the birds, and she was surprised that the birds answered back. After a couple of exchanges we saw a big yellow bird that flew from the trees. I am not experienced in birding and was too slow to get a shot. It flew really fast and disappeared among the trees. It was gone and we then continued rowing again down the river.

She pointed out to me some lily pads and she told me that is where the frogs hang out. I think she saw that on some cartoon but I think I also did.

We were going further and no worries whatsoever. We saw a few more birds flying around and I think it was big black raven. I was rowing and I was too slow so no bird photos.

Feels like we are in a different world with vines hanging in our path. We were having such a good time, good thing there was no time limit to the bamboo raft. Although I had to admit that my arms was getting a bit tired from all the rowing.

A lot of flowering trees that we do not know the names of like this one that had pink flowers. We also heard another bird from this tree but could not find it. We stopped for a couple of minutes but still could not find it.

Since I could not capture any photos of birds, I just decided to take more photos instead.

Then came the end of the line. There was a long bamboo pole blocking our path down the river. I guess the resort put it there to keep the visitors from drifting away too far. I guess that ends our adventure and sign that we needed to head back.

At this point my arms were tired from the rowing and we rested for a while. There were schools of large fish swimming around and if we just had a fishing pole it would have been fun.

Now going back was the hard part. Some of the rafters were also going back and my daughter challenged me to race them. She said, "Looks like they are pretty slow and we could take them on, and we could reach the port before them. Well challenge accepted as long as she helped with the rowing. I imitated a drumming sound to synchronize our rowing to increase our speed. Well it actually worked and we were moving faster that everyone. But there was this couple who was actually taking us on. We were glancing at each other and were very competitive and unwilling to fall behind. I kept of the drumming sound and I'm not sure if they heard it. I felt it was a bit embarrassing doing that drumming sound if every they heard it. We kept of rowing harder and finally we over took the couple. The moment we hit the port we could not help to give out a cheer of success.

It was an amazing and fun experience for us. We did not even notice that my wife and son already headed back just after a couple of minutes. Well our adventure although short was well worth it and that race at the end is the cherry on top.