“Kuya, ano po ‘yong KBL? Kamatis, Bagoong, ano po ‘yong L?” We asked Kuya Julius, our shy but accommodating tour guide on our first stop that day. After ordering a rather lousy Bagnet than crispy at lunch the day before, we found ourselves curious about its sauce, the KBL. Later we started oohing and aahing like a kid who just learned another word from the dictionary as Kuya Julius explained what it meant. Turned out the L in KBL stands for Lasona, the local term for onion.

The whole group had a call time of 6am on our 2^nd day. Since I had to come up for a small birthday surprise (a.k.a crammed handwritten letter and a book from one of our favorite authors) for Twinny the night before, I woke up feeling groggy and pleading for the universe to stop the time for me to catch more sleep.

Through the window, the sun extended its morning greetings to us as we hurried ourselves to changing clothes appropriate for the trek. (Newsflash: the trek was not a complicated mountain-like hike, could’ve worn a better OOTD. *but who am I kidding? lol*) Moments later, we went down to the beachfront  while sipping a hot chocolate and savored the magnificent view. It wasn’t until the sun’s fully up that we were able to leave the hotel for our co-travelers slept past the call time because they still managed to have a drinking session — while blasting out gangster music in the background — the night before despite the exhaustion.

Our first stop on our 2^nd day up north was the Kabigan Falls. According to Google, Kabigan Falls derived its name from the word kaibigan which literally means ‘friend’. The 120-foot falls was given such name because the falls itself and the river water are magkaibigan.

“Kuya, gaano po katagal bago makarating sa falls?” (How long should we trek before we reach the falls?) We asked Kuya Julius again.

“Mga isang oras po.” (It will be almost an hour) he replied. 

We continued our journey a la The Fellowship of the Ring (although we weren’t only nine and we’re not in a some sort of mission) by foot, at which point we met different animals and some of the locals, made our way through bushes and rice paddies and crossed bridges that traversed the river.    

The heat from the scorching sun began to wear off as we approached the falls. We saw handful of tourists already enjoying the coolness of the falls and we watched ourselves watch them with envy. It was our first time seeing a falls (at least, the first that I can totally remember. A faint memory from childhood tells me that I’ve already seen one) and we want to dive in so bad but we only have a limited time and changing to swimming clothes will be a hassle since we have to go back to our van to visit another spot. We ended up letting it enchant us with the promise of going back.

Kabigan Falls. And just like the name, though you may fall in love with her, in the end you have to leave her in the friend zone. (See what I did there? Hah! *corny*)