Iligan City is known as the City of Majestic Waterfalls. It’s not a claim based on air. This city south of the Philippines boasts a total of 23 waterfalls in its vicinity, making it one of the most attractive tourist destinations in Mindanao, both for backpackers and tourists alike.

Located in the province of Lanao del Norte, it is the industrial center of the south. Its name is derived from the Higaonon word Ilijan. The name of the city originally means fortress of defense, being the site of frequent pirate and Muslim attacks during bygone eras. The area was initially settled by sea dwellers before being invaded by Visayan migrants from the island of Panglao in the 16th century, making Iligan one of the earliest Christian settlements in Mindanao.

The heavens across Mindanao flared. Reds and oranges lit the sky as the ferry I boarded slowly chugged along the Bay of Iligan, en route to the port of Ozamiz City before doing an overnight jaunt to the Queen City of the South. With a heavy heart, I was leaving Iligan City—its majestic waterfalls and more importantly, the fantastic companions I was with during the last six days in Mindanao.

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From afar, my eyes wandered across the horizon; through the layers of mountains that spread across the land far beyond Ozamiz City. The light show intensified and passengers, who have all seen thousands of sunsets through their lives started to take notice. Everyone knew that this is far from the regular everyday sunset. Fire continued to burn the sky as the sun retired below the horizon—the heavens struggling against the onset of twilight.

Iligan’s Waterfalling Adventure Tour 1.0 ended the day before but the group still hasn’t gotten enough of those cascading watery things. For the past three days, we checked a total of six out of the twenty three accessible waterfalls in Iligan City—the Maria Cristina Falls, Tinago Falls, Mimbalot Falls, Dodiongan Falls, Pampam Falls, and Kalubihon Falls.

With most of the group still in Iligan, we decided to visit one more waterfall before calling it a day. The waterfall nominated for our visit, the eponymously named Dalipuga Falls.

Dalipuga Falls is part of the three waterfalls that benefit from a stream running across barangay of the same name. It is the lowermost waterfall of the series, with Pampam Falls in the middle and Kalubihon Falls rising above the three. I won’t be surprised if there are more waterfalls running along this watercourse that’s still undiscovered.

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Lining the coastal highway of Barangay Buruun in Iligan City are several cold spring resorts. Dubbed as the Timoga Springs, it’s a popular weekend getaway for Iliganons looking for an affordable way to cool down, especially during the hot summer season.

To be exact, there are five cold spring resorts along the Timoga highway; the Maravillas Swimming Pools, Mimay Spring Way Resort, Dela Mar Resort, Timoga Spring Pool, and El Laurentio Swimming Pools. Each one having clean spring waters gushing in varying sizes of natural and artificial pools.

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Everyone of course knows who GMA is. Gloria Macapagal Arroyo—former Senator of the Philippines, former Vice President, twice President of the country, and now Pampanga Congresswoman. Her political stint had left a bitter aftertaste to the Filipino people which led to her confinement to the wheelchair, neck braces and all.

But before all those political controversies, Gloria also used to be a kid—probably not as ordinary as you and me, but perhaps like the rich kid around the block. And during Iligan City’s Waterfalling Adventure Tour 1.0, I got to see a little bit of that side from the place she once played around in, the Macapagal-Macaraeg Ancestral House.

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I swam through the darkness. The water was freezing and we can hardly see anything but the faint greenish light gleaming at the far end of the cave. Gingerly, a few of us crept on the side walls of the cave where the water only reaches up to chest-deep in height. Eventually, I arrived at the far end. My eyes adjusted to the midday brightness of the sun and saw Iligan City’s secret waterfall, Kalubihon Falls.

Coming from the relaxing dip at Pampam Falls, a part of the three waterfalls that make up a stream in Barangay Dalipuga, we continued our hike uphill. It was not an easy trek, especially for someone as unfit as yours truly. The climb to Kalubihon Falls only took fifteen minutes but it was a punishing quarter of an hour—especially its final leg.

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A kid ran, hurling himself into air. Arms and legs outstretched, he floated and seemed to stop twenty feet in midair before torpedoing down, headfirst into the clear blue-green waters of Iligan City’s Pampam Falls. Diving perfectly, he glides beneath the crystalline waters of the falls and hurriedly went back up to the jumping edge once more—ready for another jump.

Pampam Falls at Sitio Kalubihon in Iligan City’s Barangay Dalipuga is not as readily accessible as say, the Mimbalot Falls we visited a few days ago. The hike took as long as that of the trail to Dodiongan Falls, which is about 20 to 30 minutes long, but harder.

The dirt path to Pampam slopes down and moves up in relatively steep angles. It would’ve been easier if I’m not hauling a ton of camera gear with me, but that’s a price one pays for photography’s sake.

It was the third day of Iligan City’s Waterfalling Adventure Tour 1.0 and even though we only visited a single waterfall today, the angel-winged Dodiongan Falls, we are definitely feeling the effects of visiting the waterfalls throughout the city.

To be fair, we literally spent the previous afternoon simply shooting the breeze along the tree-lined shore of the Iligan Centennial Park to witness the sunset. A relatively relaxed day on the tour—still, our stomach called to us come evening.
We roamed the streets of Iligan and found ourselves seated on a dimly lit restaurant on one of Iligan’s corner streets. Our dinner’s gonna be at the El Canto Grill & Seafood House.

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The sea breeze gently ruffled the leafy talisay trees lining the shoreline of Iligan City’s Centennial Park in Barangay Dalipuga. Our group has just finished the hike from the nearby Dodiongan Falls and we were looking for a place to relax and while the afternoon away.

The Dalipuga Centennial Park is a favorite among the Iliganons for picnics and quiet afternoon respite. Facing the western sea, it provides a breezy place where locals just generally hang out and spend time doing nothing. Small sari-sari stores line the road parallel to the park, but if you’re not in the mood to walk, vendors selling Filipino snacks like balut and chicharon also frequent the area.

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The thundering drum beats and blaring horns of Diyandi Festival were still ringing in my ears as we hiked through a grassy trail to another of Iligan City’s many waterfalls. It was the third day of the Waterfalling Adventure Tour 1.0 and we’re visiting waterfall number four—Dodiongan Falls in barangay Digkilaan.

The trail to Dodiongan Falls is pretty easy to negotiate, there were no steep hills to trek and no rocky boulders to climb and hop through. The only problem we faced, or at least the members of the group who were wearing trekking shoes, were the numerous river crossings we have to traverse.

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Every September, the streets of Iligan City transform into one huge stage of merrymaking as Iliganons celebrate the colorful Diyandi Festival. Honoring their patron, St. Michael the Archangel—food festivals, trade fairs, beauty contests, art exhibits, sports fests, and street dancing fill every street corner of the city.

I was lucky enough to be invited by the Iligan Bloggers Society to witness the Diyandi Festival which coincided with their Iligan Waterfalling Adventure Tour. While I’m really not the festival-going kind, especially after experiencing the suffocating crowd of Baguio City’s Panagbenga Festival, I still said yes since it’s really not everyday that I get to witness a festival from Mindanao.

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In Manila, lechon manoks are synonymous with either Andoks or Baliwag. There are a few others competing for the title, but those two are the ones really going head to head as the king of roasted chickens. Step some 1,461 kilometers from Manila and into Iligan City and you’d find a different landscape when it comes to lechon manok. Here, roasted chickens are synonymous with only one name, Tita Fannies Liempo & Chicken Haus.

Nestled on a two-storey building on a small alley in Iligan City, Tita Fannies has been spreading roasted goodness to Iliganons since its humble inception fourteen years ago. Looking at the number of franchises it now has and its posh restaurant interiors, you wouldn’t think that its first store was made from nipa and bamboo materials.

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The original plan to reach Mimbalot Falls in Iligan City was to trek the river that runs between the said falls and Tinago Falls. The river trekking would take a minimum of two hours. We were prepared and were as ready as we probably can be with our dry bags packed and dry fit apparels on. But we were just too enchanted with Tinago Falls and spent too much time there that we almost forgot that we have one more waterfall to visit.

To be honest, I was actually relieved that the river trek to Mimbalot didn’t push through. Besides the fear of getting my cameras wet, I was also not sure if my cramps-prone legs can handle the arduous trek. So to the van we went back and arrived at a park or something that looks like a resort.

Seriously, a resort? Yup! They even have a zip line and a cable car! Apparently Iligan City has so many waterfalls—twenty three as of last count—that they even have one inside a resort.

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Some say that the most beautiful spots in the world are located in places that are not so easy to reach; places that are hidden from the eyes of ordinary people. I guess one can say the same with Iligan City’s Tinago Falls. Literally translated from Filipino, it means the Hidden Falls.

There are actually three ways to reach Tinago Falls. The easiest are through Buruun or by the town of Linamon, and hardest is through hours of river trekking from Mimbalot Falls. We chose the easiest of the three, of course.

The way to Tinago Falls through Buruun is not as hardcore as Iligan’s Kalubihon Falls but it does take a bit of stamina to reach it.

First, we had to descend half a thousand steps into a once beautiful resort that has now fallen into absolute ruin. Our Iliganon friends related, as we hiked through the bushes in the area, how posh the resort once was before it was abandoned and nature once again took over.

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As far as grade school students are concerned, there are only two waterfalls in the Philippines—Pagsanjan Falls in Laguna and the more impressive Maria Cristina Falls in Iligan City. I wasn’t even aware back when my Sibika at Kultura teacher taught us about it that the latter is located in Iligan City. You can just imagine my delight when I saw the itinerary for the Waterfalling Adventure 1.0, we’re gonna visit one of the two Philippine waterfalls that really matter.

Unlike most waterfalls in the country where arduous trekking is usually involved, visiting Maria Cristina Falls has none of that drama at all. But a stopover to the NPC Nature’s Park also entails a bit of work, make sure you call first before visiting, else you might not see any cascading falls at all. But coordinating with the NPC peeps is basically all the work you needed to do. Nice eh?

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I can clearly recall how my fellow travel buddies showed me a photo of the best crispy squid they ever had some years back. We were staying at Restreto Inn Dipolog, waiting for the festivities of Hudyaka Zanorte to start. My mouth watered and I immediately asked where I can get some. ”Only at Iligan City’s Jacko’s Kan-Anan,” came their chorus.

I never thought that a year later, I would be sitting at Jacko’s Kan-Anan, facing a trayful of that same stuffed crispy squid that they showed me before. The kan-anan, or kainan (a place to eat) for the Tagalogs, hosted the first dinner of Iligan Blogger Society’s Waterfalling Adventure.

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It was surprising that even though Iligan City is considered to be one of the oldest Christian settlements in the country, the usual old stone church is very much missing from its bustling streets. But not to disappoint, they have something else entirely. And it is in pink. In unabashedly hot pink. Iligan City’s Cathedral of St. Michael the Archangel.

The air was festive with music coming from live bands playing in the plaza as we roamed the streets of Iligan. It was the month of September and it’s usually the time when the city is at its most festive—the Iliganons are celebrating their Diyandi Festival. A fiesta dedicated to the city’s patron, St. Michael the Archangel.

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I half-blindly followed the instructions given to me by L to reach our base of operation in Iligan City for the upcoming Waterfalling Adventure 1.0 and the Diyandi Festival. Fresh from my overnight Cebu-Iligan ferry ride, I boarded a Tubod bound jeepney at the city port and asked the driver to simply drop me off at Rene’s Diner & Pension House (now B & C Pension House).

”Where?!” He brazenly asked me. ”It’s just right after the overpass,” I said. He didn’t say anything further. I sure hope he knows where I’m going.

Sure enough, we passed the overpass and there it was. Rene’s Diner & Pension House—our very orange accommodation for our entire stay in Iligan City. I was a day ahead of the others so I have to pay for a night out of my own pocket. Which really wasn’t so bad, their cheapest room is pegged at ₱350.00. It would’ve been better if I have someone to share the room with me though as it comes with two beds.

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The invite to Iligan City’s Waterfalling Adventure 1.0 that occurs alongside with the city’s Diyandi Festival came just a month before its appointed date. There was no time to book a sale flight so I resorted to finding the cheapest airfare to Cebu via Tigerair Philippines and leapfrogging to Iligan City through a RORO ferry.

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The early part of the my day was spent checking Mactan Island; eating at Zubuchon Mactan, walking through Mactan Shrine, and ferrying all the way to the Olango Wildlife Sanctuary. I never thought traffic jams occur in Cebu City and I arrived at its pier with only a few minutes to spare.

The past days had been a blur of waterfalls at Iligan City. We visited a total of seven falls including one which was really not in the itinerary.

I was having doubts if I would enjoy the company of the group since I only knew three of the twelve travel bloggers that would be filling our van each day. They all seemed fun enough, the only problem was I was the only guy who doesn’t know how to speak the local dialect and they seemed to forget that sometimes. :)

That hesitation, however, vaporized after a few hours with the group. More than the waterfalls, it was actually the people that I had traveled with for five days that make me miss Iligan City even as I write this entry.

               ON THE ROAD: 15-DAY VISAYAS & MINDANAO SERIES POSTCARD SUMMARY
               LECHON DE CEBU | OZAMIZ-ILIGAN-OZAMIZ | SUN FINALLY AT LANAO DEL NORTE | WATERFALLING 101 AT ILIGAN
               THE COLORS OF DIYANDI FESTIVAL | TREK JUMP SWIM | FAREWELL ILIGAN CITY | BREAKDOWN | BACK ON TRACK
               SUNSET SUPPOSEDLY | BIRI ROCKS! | DAWN TO DUSK AT BIRI ISLAND | ALMOST HOME