We continued to hangout at the lagoon and get to know Bob a little better. Bob is not employed by a company, he just works for the tourists, helping them as they need. Grant asked him if the money was good. Bob laughed "The thing about The Philippines- no money, still happy." He comes from an island called Mindanao and his family lived there. He hadn't seen them for a long time and was going to go home before the pandemic hit, but he ended up having to cancel as a result he hadn't been home in 5 years. He was hoping to go home for christmas he hoped.
We told Bob we wanted to go ziplining in Bohol and he knew a shortcut so when we finished up at the waterfalls and decided to follow Bob on his shortcut to the Adventure park. We road up over them mountain through many more small villages and down dirt roads. We got to the adventure park in probably half the time it would have taken. At this point we were starving and it was looking like rain we agreed we should get something to eat. Grant and I decided to share a pizza and Bob ordered something called Pancit.
It was a noodle dish with veggies and pork- he insisted on sharing (to be fair it was a large amount of food.) We were so glad he did because it was amazing- way better than our pizza.
As we ate we told Bob about America and showed him some pictures of waterfalls we had been to and the animals we've seen in the wild (Bob never saw a deer before!) Bob told us a bit about Filipino culture (they keep cows and goats as pets not as livestock.) He also told us about his home- his village throws a large festival in the middle of December and they have four cows and a pig to feast on! He also told us that the island of Mindanao is divided into three areas- Slums, His village and the Muslim area. It's very dangerous for tourists- they get kidnapped and held for ransome, and killed. So, we wouldn't be making any trips to visit Bob's family for the big festival.
We finished our meal and headed back to the Adventure Park. We asked Bob to Zipline with us, he obliged, but you could tell he was nervous. We got up to the Zipline area and he watched very intently as everyone got all hooked up. We were all laughing that he could jump 20 meters into the water and climb up waterfalls without blinking an eye, but he was nervous about ziplining!
After our ziplining adventure we went our seperate ways. We really enjoyed our day with Bob and we won't soon forget it! If you ever find yourself in Bohol reach out to Bob- his kindness and knowledge will surely make your time memorable as well. (instagram: @welbertcagalitan)
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