Adventure Packed Day in Alegria, Cebu

Back when our group was at its peak, we would go out almost every weekend to different towns and discover the places they had to offer.

In my previous post, I shared our adventure in the town of Dalaguete, Cebu. Today, I'll take you to another one of our adventures in the town of Alegria, Cebu.

It was a few days after New Year in 2017 when we checked off Mt. Lanaya from our checklist. We had been planning this hike since 2016 when we discussed the mountains we wanted to visit within Cebu, and Lanaya was on the top of our list.

We had seen amazing photos from people who had already climbed Mt. Lanaya, so we decided to prioritize it as our very first hike in 2017.

Our adventure started at the Cebu South Bus Terminal (the usual terminal for our travels south of Cebu) at 4 in the morning. We waited for others to arrive and departed the terminal at around 5 AM.

The travel time to Alegria town is approximately 3 hours by bus. We arrived there almost at 9 AM and headed straight to its Heritage Park to take some photos with its century-old watchtower.

I then texted the motorcycle driver I had contacted before the trip to gather more motorcycles to take us to the jump-off point.

By the way, there are two ways to get to the peak of Mt. Lanaya: the Lumpan trail, which is the easy way, and the Legaspi trail. We opted for the easy one since we still had a side trip planned after this.

We rode in pairs to the Lumpan trail jump-off, which took us around 30 minutes to reach. Before we started our hike, we gathered around for safety prayers led by Dhonna.

With our guide leading the way, we followed him on a muddy trail with some mining equipment on the side. We slowly ascended on a slippery trail going up. I had a hard time going up because I was wearing hiking sandals that had no grip. Haha My steps were quite heavy due to the calories I had consumed during the holidays.

We made quick stops whenever we felt tired. A few meters later, we saw a large boulder in front of us. The guide told us we were almost there. Yay!

We were quite ahead of our schedule, so we took our time. Finally, we arrived at the peak. It was gloomy when we got there, and I think it was a good thing because there were no shades to cover us if the sun was high.

The view from the top was breathtaking, with the neighboring Negros Island and the towns of Alegria and Badian visible. We stayed there for quite some time, admiring the views and having conversations about them. With a view like that, I sometimes spaced out and just stared at it for a long time. Haha I don't know what was wrong with me, but I was just like that.

After taking a lot of pictures at the top, we decided to descend so we could enjoy the fresh water of Cancalanog Falls and Cambais Falls.

We descended to the jump-off point, which was less than an hour away. By 12:30 in the afternoon, we arrived at Cambais Falls. We had to walk a few meters to get to the falls. It was already lunchtime, so we had our lunch inside the small open hut near the falls.

With no time to waste, we quickly finished our lunch so we could enjoy the cold water of the falls. Some of my friends enjoyed dipping in the first level of the waterfalls, while I explored the top of the falls and discovered more levels above.

We stayed there for about two hours, Haha because we had finished the hike way ahead of our schedule. By 2 pm, we left Cambais Falls for another nearby waterfall.

It was not in our plan, but we still had a lot of time. So we negotiated an additional fee to include Cancalanog Falls in our adventure. Luckily, the additional fee was acceptable, so we wasted no time. After a short motorcycle ride, we arrived at the jump-off point for Cancalanog Falls.

Getting to Cancalanog Falls required descending down slippery concrete stairs. The deep aquamarine color of the basin caught our eyes. It even had a bamboo ladder to cross to the other side.

We enjoyed our short stay there and promised to come back soon. We arrived at the Alegria Heritage Park around 4:30 PM, exhausted and sleepy. We were knocked out inside the bus all the way back to the city. Haha

I miss this kind of adventure. It was packed; we managed to visit more than one site in a day and yet we still enjoyed every single one of them. Until my next throwback adventures!