It’s breakfast time once we reached Abra de Ilog’s Agbalala Falls! We laid down our bags, looked for a flat enough place to eat on and opened up our small banquet. We’ve got some tasty pork adobo, juicy steamed crabs, crunchy pork chicharon, ultra-sour mangos and fresh white rice for our little picnic right beside the cool green pool of the waterfalls.

Agbalala Falls rises up to a majestic height of 115 feet and goes down to a depth of 11 feet. It is one of the four waterfalls at Barangay Wawa; the other three being the Agbalala Lovers Falls, the Apyas Waterfalls and the Bagolayag Falls. The Lovers Falls is right above the one we were at, but the path leading up to it slopes at a sixty-degree angle with Agbalala’s deep end of the pool right below it, so no go for that one.

Nice as the place was, we couldn’t help but notice the amount of litter it had from the people that have previously visited the place. There were also bits of graffiti written over some rocks that indicate directions to the falls. A little maintenance and discipline from the locals should be enough to keep the place pristine.

After our hearty breakfast and with our rumbling stomachs already calmed down, it was time to cool down and have a swim at the waterfalls’ inviting catchment pool.

As with most waterfalls, the water was almost ice-cold at first, but you gradually get used to it and won’t even feel cold after a few minutes. Being not the best swimmers, we bought some floating-vests and snorkels to fully enjoy the pool. The water was very clear, although there was nothing much to see underwater except for a few fishes that blends with the pebbly bottom and one interesting three-foot long pointed black rock jutting off the bottom  like a skeletal finger pointing upward.

A small part of the left side of the pool only goes down to about four feet and is good for non-swimmers just wanting to have a dip.

We messed around the place for quite a bit; cajoled and taught the non-swimmers to swim across the pool, had a natural massage right below the cascading waters, and swam and snorkeled non-stop before deciding to head back down as noontime arrived. So off we packed, cleaned up our garbage, and prepped ourselves again for the rugged rocky way down.