It took a few years, but it finally happened: we have a follow-up to the Chasing Waterfalls: Daranak entry.   Oh, and also I managed to finally step foot onto Bolinao grounds after being so curious about the place since the time I was planning our Baler trip.

And maybe just like some of my friends, you may find yourself asking: what’s in freakin’ Bolinao anyways?

Falls. They have waterfalls in Bolinao. Three, in fact.

While they’re all conveniently located very near each other but they’re at least half an hour’s drive away from the town proper and the roads are rough. I do not recommend anybody bringing their vehicles to this place, unless maybe the underbelly of your car is at least two feet away from the ground.

We hired two tricycles to tour us around for the day and for some reason, we went to Bolinao Falls #2 first.

I like that it’s like Majayjay in the sense that there are multiple pools falling into each other. I didn’t take a dip (womanly problems) but my friends told me that it wasn’t too deep. The stairs going down to the falls were quite steep but cemented.

Falls #3 was next and I think this was my favorites falls out of the three because the pool looked clean, there’s a decent jet of water from the top and there weren’t as many hidden rocks that one can accidentally kick near the surface. It kind of reminds me of the Cambugahay falls in Siquijor.

It was also nice that there weren’t a lot of people swimming when we got there. There was also a man on a raft cleaning out the leaves, which was just wow.

Finally we went to Falls #1 (don’t you just love the simplicity of naming the falls with numbers?). Just like Falls #2, the steps leading down to the pool were cemented so there was no real danger of slipping. While not as high as Daranak, a lot of people still braved the height and jumped off. My friend M quite literally took the plunge and it took like ten seconds for him to get back to the surface so I guess it’s pretty deep. Of course we just contented ourselves with wading around the edges. Unfortunately there were a lot of huge boulders underneath the surface so swimming vigorously really isn’t recommended.

I quite commend the Bolinao tourism board for cementing the pathways leading to their waterfalls because it does take a lot of the hard work away. Although I suppose the flipside to that is that it’s not as “authentic” of an experience. I liked also that there were bamboo huts that can be rented out should groups choose to spend the day in Falls #2 and #1 (there weren’t any in Falls #3) and that there were life vests available for rent as well. What I didn’t quite appreciate was the fact that all of these waterfalls in Bolinao had a 50php entrance fee each. I think that’s a bit excessive, despite the comfortable amenities.

I still enjoyed these waterfalls a lot though and would highly recommend to anyone going to Bolinao visiting at least one of these gems.