It’s the first day of December!! I hear carols! I hear cheers! Oh, wait… I hear groaning of people having no clue what presents to get for family and friends, haha! I’m feeling slightly meh about this time of the year coming around this time, though, and I couldn’t pinpoint exactly why. But the mere fact that another year’s ending, and another one’s about to start is something worth celebrating, I suppose? So. Yeah. I’m there. Before I do roll around in all that yule-goodness, however, I’m going to talk about another falls – the last of my waterfalls series (this time, I hope. I’m crossing my fingers that I’d get to see more of ’em in the future). It’s Antong Falls of Brgy. Inmalog in the town of Sison, Pangasinan.
Antong Falls is the third waterfalls that I was able to visit for the month of September (the first one was Tangadan Falls, followed by Magdapio Falls). For the third straight week, I got to visit another waterfall, and it still took my breath away – in more ways than one.
Antong Falls is located in Brgy. Inmalog of Sison, Pangasinan. I’ll be honest, and say that the only pinging that Sison did on my radar was due to the fact that it is a stopover for Victory Liner buses plying the Baguio-Manila-Baguio route. It’s a pit stop, a restroom stop, and just an indication that we’re about an hour or so from home.
Just like our trip to Tangadan Falls, our group converged for breakfast at Jollibee – La Trinidad, where we also borrowed some life-jackets that we can use. We left at around 8am.
Sison is a little more than 1 hour from Baguio City via Kennon Road, but we stopped for a bit at their town market to buy some food supplies to be cooked on site. After that, we left the national highway and went to Barangay Inmalog. We checked in at their barangay hall at 9am, secured our ride, got our stuff and our food, and set off for the easy trek. The time was 9:30am.
And it was relatively easy. There were no surprises, no difficult trails… it was basically a walk through ricefields, and very friendly terrain.
There were no major descents or ascents, which came as a surprise to me, because I’ve gotten used to having to “sweat” for it when visiting a waterfall. The only sweating this time around was by virtue of the heat of the sun, the natural warm lowland climate of Pangasinan, and having to weave and pick our way carefully through the narrow paths among the rice paddies.
After 30 minutes, we came upon the sign that says we’re getting closer.
Then we finally came across the river, and there were some minor river crossings. There was one major crossing, but just the one, unlike the Tangadan Falls adventure which… well, you know how that went.
And then we finally arrived at Antong Falls. The time was 10:15. It took 45 minutes from the barangay hall to our destination.
There was an entrance fee of Php10.00 per person. And if you are lucky and there’s no one else before you, you can take dibs on one of the two large sheds. Which we were, and we did. Cooking and grilling is allowed, which one of our companions set to once we arrived. The rest of us were allowed to walk around, explore, and take photos.
Some of us immediately donned our vests and took a dip (an understatement) in the low waterfall (I think it’s the last tier before the river flowed out). The water was so strong, that even relatively strong swimmers had a hard time going near it.
Soon some local kids came along and started jumping from the high rocks to the water down below. Whoosh. Awesome. We stuck to just playing in the water. Yep, vests and all.
One of our companions have been there before and, according to him, the water this time was stronger than when they visited previously. I guess we’re lucky…?
Then we came up for air. And a hearty lunch cooked lovingly by our resident “chef” for that day. We were uncharacteristically VORACIOUS that day, a fact that surprised even us. We normally don’t eat that much, but look how we cleaned it up!
There were already a couple of other large groups that picnicked by the side of the river, because the other two sheds were occupied when they arrived.
After resting for a bit, we all decided to make the short trek upstream, to check out the other, higher tiers of the waterfalls. It was 1:15 pm already.
And there were a loooot of tiers! If the path leading to the river was a piece of cake, this is where the real difficulty lay. And we could not – WOULD NOT – leave this place without checking out the other tiers of Antong. (Excuse the low quality photos. :))
They said that Antong Waterfalls is actually a series of THREE waterfalls. I honestly did not bother counting, because as we went up, there were lots of smaller waterfalls. I think I was told there were around 7 of them, but who’s counting?
So it started with another river crossing…. and followed by a series of climbs through slippery rock faces, facing flowing water, and stopping by small waterfalls. Slipping. Hitting our shins. Groaning in pain, and pushing on. And forgetting everything after seeing these series of waterfalls.
Finally, 30 minutes of climbing later, we came to one of the higher waterfalls, and we decided to stop there because, frankly, we couldn’t find any other path to move further up. I think there’s another climb, but it looked treacherous already. We’re adventurous, but not that adventurous!
It turns out it was the main highlight of Antong Falls. AND HUZZAH!!!!
This is where we hung out. And I once again got to spend some solitary moments behind the curtain of the waterfalls. It was essentially like a mini-cave, where you sit on wet stone, with flowing water all around you, and this raging shower curtain (yes, I call it shower curtain) pouring in front of you.
After taking the requisite photos, it was a free for all. Some of us went crazy and jumped from rocks; the more cautious ones clung to the sides and prayed the water will not sweep us down another smaller tier. Clinging on for dear life hasn’t been this much fun before, I kid you not!
So what made Antong Waterfalls stand out was the fact that it took quite a beating on our bodies (and senses) to get up to the other tiers. There were supposedly other tiers up there, but we decided to quit while we still could. And even if we did quit earlier, I think we still did great. We did amazing, in fact, if I think back on the sights and sounds we’ve enjoyed as we played around in the water.
We hung around in that spot for another 45 minutes. Time passes so quickly when you’re having fun~ We started back down at around 2:30 pm. This time, the descent took only 15 minutes.
More photos from friends:
Some tips when going there:
- Wear good footwear. Preferably water sandals with good traction. Sneakers will just drag you down. But this is only if you plan on going up through the other tiers.
- Be there early. This is if you want to be able to have any of the two sheds. There are spots or areas for grilling food, as well as washing dishes and stuff, so no worries there.
- Go with people who share your sense of adventure and are up for anything. That’s the most important thing.
Visit Antong Falls, everyone~! You won’t regret it!!
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