Mambukal

Last week my sisters great friends Benessa and Chris made it to Bacolod for a couple of days. They have been teaching english in China for the last 10 months and are slowly making their way home to Lethbridge. Benessa's family is from the Philippines and she decided it was time to bring her boyfriend here to visit so they could explore the Philippines beauty together. It was just so wonderful to have them here, to have someone who knew exactly what it is like to live in a different culture and be on your own. It was only a short stay with us since they were making their way to Bohol Island but we were able to take them up into the interior of the Island to a Mountain Resort in the jungle. It was the perfect day for it! The name of the place is Mambukal and it's famous for it's huge bats and annual Mudpack festival where people wear beautiful tribal outfits and they play in huge mud pools!

Benessa and Chris went on a hike to see 3 of the 7 waterfalls while we took the kids for a dip in the natural hot springs. Such a dream! When you don't have a bathtub it's such a treat to sit in a hot pool and relax, ahhhh. The pools are so hot that they have two hoses pumping in cold water to moderate it a bit. The kids just love playing with the hoses, all the times we've been to the pools they hardly spend anytime in the water. The majority of the time they are outside the water playing with the cold water spraying themselves and to my dissaproval, ME. It was such a great day and we had a really fun time relaxing in the middle of the jungle.