Down to the Blue.
The Philippines has more beauty than you know what to do with. Whale sharks, free diving, island after island, and water that runs through more shades of blue than anyone has names for, aqua to royal to the palest sky and every blue in between, all of it right here in the Philippines. There are two blues here, the one overhead and the one underfoot, and somehow they match so well you stop trying to tell them apart. We had the whole menu lined up, the ATVs, the zip lines, the snorkeling, but the one thing my family could not stop talking about was the canyoneering. Because canyoneering is all of it at once. You trek, you climb, you jump off cliffs, you swim, you slide down the rock, you ride the rapids. It is every adventure we love folded into one, and we could not wait to get down into it.
Kawasan Falls, in Badian.
The canyon this happens in sits in Badian, a town on the southwest coast of Cebu, about three hours down from Cebu City, and the falls at the end of it are Kawasan Falls, the iconic Cebu canyoneering people fly in from all over the world to run. The whole route follows the Kanlaob River as it drops through a limestone gorge, and the water is the part you will not believe until you are standing in it. It runs an electric turquoise from the first pool to the last, that impossible blue that comes from the limestone dissolved in the water, the very rock that built the walls you are jumping off and sliding down. Most travelers blow straight past this stretch of southern Cebu on their way to the islands, and that is their mistake, because Badian is hiding one of the best adventure days in all of Southeast Asia. If you want to find it for yourself, start with two words: Kawasan Falls, Badian.
A guide for every one of us.
We always travel with a private guide. This time we went further and got a guide for each of us, one per person, all five. Normally two or three is plenty, but I had read how serious this canyon was and I wanted a set of hands on every member of my family. My youngest, who was five at the time, ended up with two of his own, and let me tell you, that boy did not walk a single step. He rode piggyback the entire way, handed from one guide to the next, the most relaxed member of the whole expedition. The rest of us were game and ready. He was just along for the view.
Lunch, and a line into the jungle.
It started at the meeting office where we finally met our guides, over a lunch that honestly could have been served back home: chicken wings, mashed potatoes, corn on the cob, and a Filipino soda that turned out to be really good. It felt like the States for a minute, and it was exactly the fuel we needed. From there we walked about a kilometer and a half to the zip line, because the zip line is how you get into the jungle. It ran two or three kilometers across, and as we flew over it we could see the plains and the green rolling on forever beneath our feet. My youngest and I completely lost it up there, hyping each other up and making monkey noises the whole way across until we touched down on the far side. Then the work began. We climbed for fifteen or twenty minutes, straight up, and right when our legs thought that was the test, the mountain turned and pointed us back down.
The way down nearly finished us.
What was waiting was a staircase of stone steps cut into the mountain, dropping toward the canyon floor, and not one of us knew how many there were or how long it would take. The answer was nearly thirty minutes of going down, and I am telling you, it does not matter what kind of shape you think you are in, how much you train, how far you run. These stairs were treacherous, and they destroyed us. At the halfway mark there is a landing where you can stop and catch your breath, and by the time we reached it my calves were burning, my hamstrings were tight, my quads were twitching, and my whole family’s legs were finished. We were soaked through, sweating in the heat, and the entire way down my five-year-old was riding high on his guide’s back, perfectly relaxed, looking at the rest of us like we were putting on a show. He looked back at the rest of us like, what is wrong with you guys, you guys tired? Obviously we were. We kept going until we heard it, the unmistakable roar of a waterfall, and we knew we were close. Far down at the bottom of the canyon we finally reached the mouth of the water and just stopped. That descent, by itself, was the workout. That alone could have been the whole day.
Inside the cathedral.
We jumped straight into the water to cool down, and it was so refreshing, like dropping into a giant cold pool that resets your whole body in a single second. We sat in it a moment, letting the guides settle us and letting our legs find themselves again, and then the real canyoneering began. We followed those guides deep into it, no map, no plan, no cell signal at all, trusting them completely as they read the rock and the water and told us where we were and what we were looking at. We slid down stone chutes, got caught under little waterfalls, and swam through narrow canals with only one way in and one way out, like dark tunnels cut through the rock, walled in on every side. And when you look straight up, all you see is a single hole of daylight, no bigger than the Bean in Chicago, the only light getting in while you stand chest deep in cold water. Vines and moss hang off rock that has been growing them for thousands of years, thick and green and ancient. The guides linked our arms and pulled us through the current. There is no other word for it. It is a cathedral, and you are walking the floor of it.
The kids stopped being scared.
Then came the cliffs, and my two oldest did something I genuinely did not think they would. They jumped twenty meters, off the top, throwing karate moves on the way down, full flying kicks like something out of a video game. No hesitation, no fear, just laughing and yelling the whole way to the water. That was the moment I knew the fear was gone. I went off doing flips myself. My wife got swept up and dragged through the little rivers, flipped upside down, having the time of her life. We were not there to earn a certificate or master a technique. We were there to move our bodies, to have fun, to dare each other into something bigger and cheer when it landed. For a ten-year-old to jump twenty meters off a cliff, that is a huge thing, and we got to witness it together. And here is what stayed with me. I did not give my kids that courage standing on the edge. The canyon did. I just brought them to it, and then I got to watch them find out what was already in there.
What we carried out.
We owe a lot to the guides who walked us through every step of it, who taught us the canyon and kept five very different people safe in some serious terrain. By the time we climbed out, exhausted and grinning, we had a day none of us will ever forget. That is what the Philippines gave us, down between its two blues. If you are looking to do every kind of adventure at once, with the people you love, in water with this many shades of blue, this is the one. We carried out sore legs, soaked clothes, and a day the five of us will be retelling for the rest of our lives, the day the Philippines showed us what it keeps hidden under the jungle. Just be ready for the stairs.