Last Monday I headed out with Ashton and Savannah to go to a water park that I found on the Internet even before we arrived in Cebu. The water park was labeled a "Resort" and included hotel rooms and such. The taxi ride took about 1 hour from our house, but was only about 25 kilometers away. I was smart and called beforehand to make sure that they were open and to verify the cost - only $2.50 for adults and $1.25 for kids (the Taxi ride cost us twice as much as the admission into the park).
When we arrived, the place looked very nice and I was quite impressed, but I noticed something was a bit odd for such a large place - no one was there. Of course the staff was there, but there were no visitors. I didn't realize at the time, but public school had just started that day and because of its far distance from the city, the park most likely catered to the locals. As I paid the lady at the ticket booth she reassured me that they were open for business even though half of the pools were empty, all the chairs where up on the tables, and the water slides had no water running down them.
The waterpark was more than just a swimming pool, it had a butterfly sanctuary, bird sanctuary, and best of all, monkeys. Right at the front entrance was a globe cage of about five monkeys. Next to the cage was a big sign that said, "Stay Away From the Monkey" We ignored the sign and decided to take advantage of an opportunity to shake hands with the monkeys. The kids had fun touching the monkeys and the monkeys had fun trying to grab whatever they could to explore. At one point one of the monkeys grabbed Ashton with both hands and one foot and tried pulling him closer. This scared Ashton a bit, but the monkey simply was trying to gain leverage to reach for Ashton's other hand which contained a cracker in it.
Next was the Butterfly Sanctuary. Wala! (Cebu word for none or nope.) The Butterfly Sanctuary consisted of a butterfly collection on the wall. It made me laugh.
We continued on our journey into the Bird Sanctuary. We entered a large cage that reminded me of Hoggle Zoo's bird sanctuary where you can enter and feed the birds. Well, some of the birds were in cages, the birds of prey like hawks and eagles (thank goodness), but there were other birds flying around as well. We walked down the little path only to be stopped by this bird:
He kept squawking at us and followed us with every turn. Ashton thought it was funny as he got trapped behind us by the bird. We were stuck at one point between the squawking bird and the gate keeper bird below.
The bird was actually quite large and kept giving us the evil eye. Once we found our escape we quickly left. On to the waterslides.
As I said before, they had to turn the waterslides on. The park had a total of three slides, two for adults and one for children. Unfortunately, the children's pools were empty for maintenance so we decided to disregard the sign in the adult pool and go in anyway. The sign says, "For Adult Good Swimmers Only. No Children Allowed To Swim In This Pool."
It took some bribery but I did get Savannah to go down the slide with me. She then ventured to go down by herself with me catching here at the bottom. This ended quickly when on her third time she slipped when trying to sit down on the slide and found herself going down backwards on here tummy. I still caught her, but the fright was just too much. I quit after several runs as well, because my body just couldn't take the concrete burns I got with every run. What?! Yes, the slides were not fiberglass or plastic but sanded concrete. It reminded me of the Lake Powell days as a family, sliding down on the red rock into the water. Fun until we got back in the boat and realized that we were covered with scrapes.
Ashton went down at least 30 times.
We only spent an hour in the pool, before getting out. Because we were so far away from the main road, we had to take a tricycle to get to a street to find a taxi to get home. Tricycles are motorcycles with passenger seating on the side. They fit up to 10 people on one motorcycle. The kids thought that was fun as that was their first ride on a tricycle bike. Here is a picture of a tricycle I found on the web. It was an awesome trip!
Here is a video with the monkeys. Watch and you can see the monkeys grab Savannah's hair and also as they take a swip at my camera.
He kept squawking at us and followed us with every turn. Ashton thought it was funny as he got trapped behind us by the bird. We were stuck at one point between the squawking bird and the gate keeper bird below.
The bird was actually quite large and kept giving us the evil eye. Once we found our escape we quickly left. On to the waterslides.
It took some bribery but I did get Savannah to go down the slide with me. She then ventured to go down by herself with me catching here at the bottom. This ended quickly when on her third time she slipped when trying to sit down on the slide and found herself going down backwards on here tummy. I still caught her, but the fright was just too much. I quit after several runs as well, because my body just couldn't take the concrete burns I got with every run. What?! Yes, the slides were not fiberglass or plastic but sanded concrete. It reminded me of the Lake Powell days as a family, sliding down on the red rock into the water. Fun until we got back in the boat and realized that we were covered with scrapes. 
We only spent an hour in the pool, before getting out. Because we were so far away from the main road, we had to take a tricycle to get to a street to find a taxi to get home. Tricycles are motorcycles with passenger seating on the side. They fit up to 10 people on one motorcycle. The kids thought that was fun as that was their first ride on a tricycle bike. Here is a picture of a tricycle I found on the web. It was an awesome trip!
1 comment:
Looks like a wonderful day!
Post a Comment