It's our family's second day spending summer in my sister's place in San Pablo City and it's mom's second week in her homecoming to the Philippines. Today, we are bound to a famous destination in San Cristobal, a spring where they say it's evidently a rare kind of man-made and natural resources combined, which is starting to make names to foreign visitors because of its unique summer setting and experience you will never get from most of the resorts and beaches in the flanks of the 7,107 islands of Juan dela Cruz.
We headed through the rocky and rough roads of San Pablo City entering the edgy straights leading us to an endless driving to nowhere. It's a normal statement in the provinces to hear the locals saying "it's near here, it's just there (pointing to a direction where your eyes can't see its endpoint)" and it turns out to be a half-hour drive. The arrows in the streets leading us to Bato Spring are countless. Until we found ourselves greeted by a signboard confirming we are now in the said place, at last!
Welcome to Bato Springs, indeed!
We were warmly greeted by a scalper, err... i mean, an usher who just casually priced our entrance fee by counting the number of heads and rounded the sum into the nearest thousands (to get rid of the odds in the total amount). He was surprisingly amazing as he calculated quickly in his mind, without pause, no swallowing of spoiled saliva, and laid down the total amount. We paid him quickly without rechecking his calculation in our mobile phone calculators because we wanted to get in right away. As soon as I parked the car to a soon-to-be-converted-cottage open field, I pulled up my calculator and started computing... my jaw dropped, because he was right. He must have been doing that all his life, I thought.
We parked just right next to a large man-made pool with waterfalls all over the sides of the scenic view and surprisingly, what I saw was... a sea!
Yes, a sea of people!
Everyone's dipping in the crater-like water-filled container. Everyone else passing by are complaining how cold the water is but I wonder why there are still enormous people in there. We wanted to try and test it. Our first dip was electrifying! It was the coldest water that ever touched my skin. It was like bathing in a pool of melted snow and it's freezing us to death. I felt like all my blood vessels have constricted and the pressure has suddenly gone up. I tried swimming a few times but I gave up after some time. I stood up pretending that I preferred taking pictures instead so I did a few shots. The scenery was majestic so I took the chance to take some shots with it while I'm on the foreground (notice in the photos that I almost don't want to touch the water so I make it a point that only a portion of my skin is dipped).
We noticed another large group of people walking towards a higher ground like as if there is a pilgrimage going to Mount Golgotha. We got curious so we decided to follow these people. Over the stony edge of a hill-structure is another sea of people, all trekking their way up and then down to a slope of spiral staircase made of slippery rocks. When the crowd cleared, an amazing and jaw-dropping scenery revealed in our own very eyes. It was a huge waterfalls crawling through a pile of rocks with colder water than where we came from. The folks say the waters from below come from the falls up here that's why the temperature is lower than what we have experienced down there.
We tried to dip again in the water but it was like suicide. The moment the big toe touches a tiny drop of water, you will feel the electricity rushing through your veins. It was like doing a straight sip of slushie and your brain freezes. What else we can do but... taking pictures of ourselves in the falls (notice that I still almost don't touch the water).
a It's one of the best summers of my life. If you want an extra-ordinary summer dip, try the Bato Springs in San Cristobal. It's worth changing a phase of your life.
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