CDO + Bukidnon

My friend Stella and I had a planned overnight trip to Cagayan de Oro last weekend. She booked us the tickets about a month ago when Air Philippines had a seat sale - the tickets just cost us ~2000 pesos per head round trip. This is the first time Stella and I went on an out of town trip. For the longest time, the farthest we went to together is just Tagaytay. She actually planned everything. I didn't do one thing. Yehey!! That's a change from the usual!

White Water Rafting
This was my second time trying out CDO's white water rafting. The first one was way back 3 - 4 years ago? We were thinking of doing the extreme rafting this time (more rapids, plus a rapid that's a kilometer long!) but due to time constraint, we couldn't book that one. So we decided to just do the advance level.

Since there were only two of us, we had to join in with some other group. So we met this group who half are from Manila, and the other half from Cagayan de Oro. One of them opened a new hotel in CDO so they invited some of the relatives from Manila to try it out. And they were going white water rafting with us too. We ended up sharing the raft with a couple of people from that group. The part I loved the most was riding the kayak. Feel na feel namin ang rapids! And by the second half of the ride, bumabagyo na! Masmasarap mag white water rafting when it's raining. More rapids and mas exciting!

* all pictures are on my friends camera. I really need to buy a new one! Hindi na nakakafocus nang maayos yung camera namin

Bukidnon Trip


There's a new adventure park in Bukidnon which just opened last quarter of 2009. They offer the longest dual zip line in the whole of Asia so of course, we had to try it out! We hired a driver for one whole day to bring us everywhere we want to go for the day.


Nakakatawa talaga itong driver namin.

While we were waiting for our turn for the zip line (they have to drive you all the way up first), our driver, lucky for him, was given a free zip line ride (dahil first driver of the day daw na dumating sa Dahilayan Adventure Park). While he was up there somewhere waiting for his time to ride the zip line, nag text sa amin, ang sabi "ma'am, baka pwede po kuhaan niyo ako ng picture habang nag zip line". Hahaha lol. kakaibang driver ito!

And then when it was our time to go up, we left our camera to the driver, asked him to take a picture of us this time when we ride the line. And he did take our pictures. So when we reviewed our pictures - lo and behold, I knew he'd do that - he took a picture of himself. Tapos may another picture na nag papicture pa siya (with posing eh). Laugh trip! And that doesn't end there, sa kakakalikot yata niya nung camera, he didn't take a still photo of us, instead, naka set to video na pala yung camera! Crap! Video yung nakuha nung posing ni Stella.

Before I forget, nasapawan kasi ng katatawanan ng driver - The zip line was awesome, by the way. I loved it there. Weather was cool. Reminds me of Baguio's weather. Maganda kung ma develop pa yung place na yun. Dadami ang pupunta dun. In fact, there were a lot of people going to the Dahilayan Adventure Park. When we left there around 10 am, there were already probably around 20 who already rode the line and a lot more in line, and then we saw a couple more cars going towards the park. This is pretty good business. And think about it, per head is around 500-600 pesos, depending on which lines you'd be taking.

For lunch, we dropped by Del Monte Country Club. Going to del monte country club, magsawa ka sa pineapples. Of course, we had to buy some pineapples to bring home!

I love it here. When I grow old, I would really love to go live in the province, somewhere quiet and more relaxed than the busy and crazy Manila.

Food
Of course, what trip would be complete without food tripping. Whenever Stella and I go out, food is always the focus of our activities. Number one priority. Just take a look at what we did last Saturday. Right after the white water rafting (roughly around 5-5:30 pm, they provided us with a full meal - barbecue plus rice and drinks). Hindi pa kami nakontento diyan. After getting home and cleaning up, we went to Countryside Steakhouse!

This restaurant is located in Limketkai center. It's pretty nice there, reminds me somewhat of Greenbelt where there are a lot of restaurant choices around. Countryside restaurant, we heard, is popular for their steaks. Stella ordered Beef:


While I ordered... the Ostrich Steak!!


Ostrich steak was really good. I ordered medium rare, but I initially got it as rare. I think sa sobrang kapal nung meat hindi na talaga maluto yung loob. I did ask them to cook it a little bit further and turned out pretty good. The ostrich steak is tasty!

By the end of the meal, masakit na ngipin ko sa kakanguya.

But our food trip didn't end there. Even if we were so full at this point, we saw this restaurant Candy. It's owned by a friend's aunt. The chef trained in France or something so we decided to try out their desserts. We ordered the "sinful" cake slice. Akala ko "senfol" kasi yun ang sabi ng waiter. Sinful naman pala. :)

Look at that cake! It's brownie + some white cream. Yung white cream napakasarap.


Grabeng kabusugan that night.

Back to reality
Unfortunately, vacation is just vacation and it always has to end. We packed up our stuff and headed home. But if there's one thing I learned from this trip, it's that we really need to go have fun once in a while. Do something out of the ordinary! Be free from all problems and headaches. Times like these, not only do we get to rejuvenate, but we end up making new memories!