AURORA: Land of the Golden Sunrise

I dreamed of going to Aurora province to have my first surfing experience. Last year, I suggested that we should have our annual summer escapade at Baler, but we didn’t push through because they wanted a white-sand beach. I set aside my plans of going there until this year.

As I always plan to spend my summer with friends, I thought of opening the plan to go to Baler. Knowing that few of us were interested of surfing in a distant place, good thing my friend has a contact where we can spend the night in Baler, and the plan finally pushed through.

As the most eager to go to the surfing capital of Central Luzon, I booked our tickets two weeks before at Joybus, the executive coach of Genesis bus for Php700. The day finally came and we’re seven folks going on a non-stop trip to Baler, also the provincial capital of Aurora.

On our stay at the province, we’ve visited three towns namely Maria Aurora, San Luis, and Baler. Our adventure stories below. 

Please click below titles to see my stories.

The Great Balete Tree of Maria Aurora

The Exhaustive Trail to Ditumabo Falls

Baler's Tourist Spots

A Beginner's Surfing Experience

AURORA: Food trip and pasalubong

AURORA: The Exhaustive Trail to Ditumabo Falls

After visiting the old balete tree in Maria Aurora town, we headed directly to Mother falls in San Luis. The entrance to the falls is located beside the welcome arch of Brgy. Ditumabo.



Our tricycle was able to enter through a dirt road a few hundred meters away from the highway. However, as we went inwards, the traffic caught us up. There's no way to pass the narrow dirt road but to walk a few meters, so our tricycle will be able to go past the concrete road going up to the Ditumabo falls. We never knew that it will take us for more than an hour to get to the entrance. We thought we're already near, but this scene greeted us.

We forgot that is was a holiday that day, so we didn't expect tourists of this volume to form long queues just to get a glimpse of the mother falls.



I paid the entrance fee for Php30 each.

This marker told us to walk about  a kilometer.

Halfway, you'll have to surrender the receipt. You can have first aid assistance and leave your belongings here for a fee.

You'll pass gushing waters from the river, more rocks and bamboo bridges. Better to walk barefooted but be extremely careful.

After an hour of walking, we finally set foot infront of Ditumabo Mother Falls. The water was so cold but due to teeming tourists swimming simultaneously, I just took a picture of falls with my friends.

I didn't forget to take a selfie after taking a dip on its waters. We were already tired when we got there, so we had little time to swim as there's so little space and possibility of stampede as more tourists wanted to take turns.

 

Overall, it was a good experience to see the Mother Falls of Aurora province. It's better to go here not on holidays like we did, so you'll avoid these scenes that we faced. Happy trip!