Puerto Princesa City is the Eco-Tourism Capital of the Philippines and is home to four known waterfalls in that particular city of Palawan wherein
Salakot Waterfalls is one of those popular destinations. Salakot Waterfalls is located in Napsan which is more or less than a hundred kilometers away from the city proper, travel time by a private vehicle is estimated to at least an hour and a half, or more than two hours if you will consider riding a tricycle. Passenger jeepney travels only once daily with indefinite schedule from the public transportation terminal.
Arrangements from your hotel can be made earlier if you wish to visit Salakot Waterfalls, but it is costly since this is not part of a regular day tour activity, if you are really interested to visiting this falls you should allocate at least a whole day to fully enjoy the experience. Travel wise, it is not so convenient because you will have to combat a tough rough slopes and narrow road heading to the falls.
On our visit, we took a trike because there’s no available private vehicle to take us there and the only passenger jeepney that day had already left. We’ve no choice rather than to risk our travel in the hands of two trike drivers who turned to be so friendly and accommodating. Two trikes? Yes, because one trike can only accommodate a single passenger because of the bad road condition on half of the travel but trust me it was so fun and worth the experience.
The first half of the travel was as smooth as a thin air as we tackle the main road ahead but by all odds I have no idea how long it would take and how far that falls is. When the trikes turned their forks to the right slope then I had a feeling that we were near, but I was wrong with my presumptions because it took us probably an hour more battling the rough roads, so bored at looking on tall dark trees from both sides, and compelled to cross a river on foot, I mean literally crossed a small river with running water. A small bridge on the side is mainly for pedestrians especially when the river’s water current is high but for the experience, we crossed the river.
Typical bamboo houses are visible on the roads with light facial greetings of local people who are used to seeing tourists hanker to visit the famous waterfalls in their area. I was thinking the kind of lifestyle these people used to have in such semi-outback place with no electricity in most parts of the town, I bet it’s hard but they seemed happy and comfortable with their living.
The Napsan Waterfalls Experience:
At first, you would not think that there’s something special about this falls – it’s tiny, deserted and nothing but the running water and chirps of insects are the only sound that you will hear from the forest. Aside from the four of us, there’s no any single person around during the time of our visit, it was like this small paradise is ours to take.
The water is cold and very clean. It’s really inviting!
I’ve no idea how shallow or deep it is until we threw ourselves in, but the trike drivers ensured us that it was shallow and safe. This is definitely one of those pleasures you will get in a travel adventure, it’s priceless.
We have enjoyed more than two hours on the water and spent few minutes hanging around the place but didn’t go too far, it’s a wild forest after all and we have no idea what’s inside the woods, trike drivers warned it’s dangerous.
We set off past three in the afternoon, trike drivers told us that it’s not safe if we depart late because there is no street lights and dark clouds were forming. Heavy rain poured in when we were at the middle of the rough road and it went even tougher for the drivers to maneuver the trikes because the road became muddy and slippery but they’ve managed to pass through and brought us back safe to our hotel in the city.
Travel adventure is fun especially when you don’t anticipate spontaneous things along the way and have no idea what exactly on that place you are about to explore, but the good thing about travelling in an unknown destination aside from just knowing a particular site is that you used to have this kind of thrill and experience, you will roughly feel some fear which would eventually turn as excitement when you witness such marvelous views way too different from what you read and seen in photographs.
For me, having this opportunity to have travelled and seen the Salakot Waterfalls is an indication that life is still full of surprises and a never-ending adventure.
