Many Rivers to Cross – Pagsanjan

Where? Well, where they re-filmed Apocalypse Now, is the answer. The Francis Ford Coppola film was a disaster in the making as well as a disaster movie being made: one of the original actors, Harvey Keitel, was replaced by Martin Sheen, who in turn suffered a heart attack. Then the sets, originally located at Iba, northwest of Manila, were wrecked by Hurricane Olga and many had to be recreated at Pagsanjan, about an hour and a half’s drive southeast of Manila. The local tribesmen were recruited to play extras and disembodied heads, with their bodies concealed in boxes buried beneath the set, in Kurtz’s kingdom, and the climactic hacking to death of a water buffalo – which Coppola managed to capture on film – is part of their ritual celebration, so he adapted this tradition to fit in with his adaptation of Joseph Conrad’s most celebrated novel.

But Pagsanjan is a place well worth the visit, even if you’re not a big fan of the film – it offers a very thrilling, and extremely wet, boat trip up, or down, the rapids around Pagsanjan Falls (which, to much tourist confusion, are also known as Magdapio Falls. Going one way, the four mile paddle upriver to the falls passes the site of Kurtz’s nightmare empire, and culminates in a scary, white-water ride back down over fourteen sets of rapids. The canoes are close around six metres long and made of wood. Because of the narrow straits of some of the rapids, the Pagsanjan boats lack the outrigger you see on most boats. Check for life vests, some local canoes don’t carry them, and if you’re not a strong swimmer, or have children along, live vests are a very good idea! Note that on the way up, your two paddlers will often jump out of the boat to manhandle it between boulders while dodging other canoes on their way down. This provides almost as much entertainment as the jewel like birds and butterflies flitting overhead. Eventually the canoe reaches a dead-end canyon where Pagsanjan Falls tumbles down and it is possible to take a raft-ferry across the plunge pool to the base of the falls.

Pagsanjan photograph by My Visita Iglesia, used under a creative commons attribution licence

 

© blueworldgardener.co.uk