A couple of weeks after my last birthday, I went to visit a familiar place: Daranak Falls in Tanay, Rizal. Just like Baguio City, Daranak Falls is one of the places I take for granted. We have relatives on my father’s side in Tanay and we, as a family, used to visit the family lot at least once a year.

My cousins were always eager to entertain and a short trip to Daranak Falls was always offered. My brother and I would always decline though, since a trip to Tanay almost certainly meant just relaxing and enjoying the cool weather; the house we stayed in didn’t have cable TV and Internet wasn’t as accessible back then so visits to Tanay meant a lot of sleeping in and a lot of reading. Despite the fact that the last time I remember going to Daranak was when I was in grade school, the frequent mention of the place made me think in my head that I know the place like the back of my hand. Delusional, I know.

Anyway, last year I suggested to the Quality Room Peeps – A, J and N – that we go on a short road trip to Tanay and check out the falls. This was in line with my 2015 goal of visiting a new(-ish) place at least once a month. Schedules were cleared and pretty soon a date was set for our trip. Even better, J, being the awesome dude that he is, volunteered to be the driver of the day. I just tagged along and brought my E-Pass to shoulder the toll fees in SLEX.

I woke up very early that Saturday so I can meet the three of them in Alabang because they were all coming from the night shift. I deposited my car in the Northgate parking lot and off we went. Nobody actually did any research prior to the trip – we were all extremely reliant on Waze, which probably was a mistake since it made us go through a lot of rough roads (C6 I think the route was called) going to Tanay.

As soon as we were out of the rough roads, we all stopped by a random McDonalds for breakfast. After that we all went to the neighboring Purefoods to buy bread and water to munch on the rest of the way.

The ride was smooth and traffic free, the winding roads and the awesome view of the Sierra Madre providing ample entertainment to us back seat passengers. It helped of course that we were rocking out to a pretty awesome playlist consisting of nothing but pop songs.

We arrived there a little bit before ten o’clock and we were lucky to have found a vacant parking space. I shall forever be grateful to J who agreed to drive his car – which I think is being washed and waxed at least once a week – through an incredibly dusty dirt road.

Our parking space was a bit ways away from the entrance to the Falls (the last time I went here I don’t think there was an actual entrance; just a table and a donation box where you’re required to log in your names) so we had to walk for a few minutes. We paid the mandatory 50PHP entrance fee per head, got ourselves a picnic table (yet another thing I don’t remember existing when I last went; I remember before we just brought folding beds and parked near the water), and changed into our swimming gear in the public bathrooms.

It was one of those times when I wished I had a dry bag because the Manilena in me could not bear to leave our phones and wallets and whatnots in the table, which was a good thirty meters away from the actual falls. As it was we contented ourselves with lugging around this small bag around the place, with one person always staying near the shore to look after our things.

The falls, however, did look extremely familiar to me. It looked the same as the ones in the pictures from when I was younger, if only a little bit drier (it was summer and the flow of the water probably was affected). A lot of people were lounging on the sides of the falls, clinging onto unseen rocks, because the middle of the pool was very deep. A lot of guys were actually jumping off the mini cliff into the middle. They didn’t look like they were hurt, so I assume it was deep enough to cover that at least.

J and A rented an inner tube that was horrendously overpriced (180PHP!!!) which we ended up not using because it was too big, lol. The water was very refreshing and cold; it was definitely an experience worth having to sit under the streams and get a waterfall massage.

We probably just spent a couple of hours in the water and felt the need to get out because 1.) it was too cold, and 2.) we were feeling kinda hungry already. We took a shower in their public shower rooms for a fee (20PHP each, I think).

Feeling refreshed and hungry, we all made the trek uphill back to the car and drove off to find a random eatery on the road.

Directions on how to get there can be found here: Daranak Falls Info Center