Byaheng Pandays: Oslob

Living in Cebu for 3 years has taught me many things, but one of the best things I’ve learned is that the island is filled with beaches waiting for you to visit. I’ve talked about some of them here on Silence Is The Enemy, namely the beaches in Bantayan and Malapascua Islands.

Indeed, when the stress of city life proves too much to bear, the best remedy is but a few hours away.

My friends say the best beaches in Cebu are found down south, where I’ve never been to. The aforementioned northern beaches in Bantayan and Malapascua are great, but there are even better ones on the opposite side of the island.

The first of these southern beaches that I managed to visit was in the Boljoon/Oslob area and good Lord, was I blown away. This trip was a part of my work’s team outing — us PM shifters like to go places — in an effort to promote camaraderie and friendship and all that corny team spirit stuff.

Oslob is known for its whale shark watching activities where you get to interact with the biggest fish in the world, so of course that was our main event. But like in any boxing match, there were several undercard destinations before we got to the top bill.

First off, we stopped by Boljoon Church for photo ops, and wooooh if there’s one thing we millenials are known for, it’s our affinity for aesthetics. Who doesn’t like a good artsy photo with giant ancient church doors as background, right?

Our next stop was Aguinid Falls located in Samboan town, to the southwest of Oslob. Similar to most tourist-y waterfalls in the Philippines, Aguinid has multiple levels with different water depth and the difficulty to reach the next stage increases with every level. Think of it as an IRL action-adventure videogame. But instead of multiple save points, you die once and it’s game over.

To further accentuate the videogame metaphor, in order for one to reach level three, one must hold on to a harness and carefully climb up a slippery wall of rock with water flowing counter to the direction you’re going. I’m a big fan of the Tomb Raider reboot for the PlayStation 4, and that was all I could think of while trying to reach the apex of the falls.

Of course, visitors can swim in the pools beneath the falls, and getting your back massaged by the falling feels great. Also, if you have a death wish, or if you’re just the right amount of insane, you can climb up a platform-like rocky thing and jump on to the pool of water below. Neat, huh?

The following morning, we headed off to one of the beaches in Oslob where whale shark activities are conducted. It is imperative that one engages in this activity early in the morning because 1.) the whale sharks leave the vicinity in the afternoon and 2.) the number of tourists lining up to ride boats is very high so an early start means you get a good chance you get to see the sharks first.

Before tourists can get their gear (life jacket, snorkel, goggles) they have to register at the front desk and listen to a briefing about do’s and don’ts when engaging the giant fish. Standard stuff, no flash photography, no throwing of trash, etc. The one rule that stands out in a hilarious manner to me is that swimmers have to be at least 4 feet away from the whale sharks at all times. Because of course we can tell the fish to stay where they are and not come any closer lest we break the 4 feet rule. Hilarious.

So yeah, once you’re in the boat, you get a closer look at the sharks. They don’t look big at first but my goodness, you can actually fit inside their mouths. Good for people that their main diet is krill, microscopic shrimp-like invertebrates.

It was awesome seeing these gentle giants and it’s another stern reminder that we humans are just tiny meatsacks when compared to other creatures that inhabit our speck of cosmic dust floating in a dark, infinite void.

I would like to end this, though, on a serious note. I am not at all happy with the practice of feeding the whale shark by the boat masters in order for the fish to follow the boats. They become dependent on humans and wild animal dependency on humans could mess up the ecosystem in the seas surrounding Oslob in the grand scheme of things.

Of course, stuff like this generates income for the locals but we have to also think of the effect business has on nature. We shouldn’t forget that these creatures have been living in those waters way before humans did and we are merely trespassing on their territory. You wouldn’t like mother nature to serve reminders to you.