Pampanga Bound
A Travel Guide to the
Home of the Kapampangans
PALAKOL RIVER
The Philippines is known worldwide for its beautiful, majestic beaches, right? And provinces with no coastlines like Pampanga are often bypassed when searching for fun & excitement destinations. Surprise, there are hidden treasures that await you.
When you want to cool off from the summer heat because, let’s face it, these past few summers it’s looking as if we can fry eggs and bacon on the streets… there is this free for all nature curved water park under the SCTEX bridge in Floridablanca…even with the flat topography of Pampanga, people find fun in the Palakol River.
One summer ago my family and I were craving to plunge ourselves into cool waters to escape the summer heat. We didn’t want to just swim in a “restricting” swimming pool resort…we wanted new fun experience…and likely (and sort of unlikely too, go on reading and you will see why) we heard of Palakol River. We bought and cooked “Pindang” or the native pork tapa, boiled eggs, prepared tomato salad, and wrapped rice in banana leaves and away we drove through the road shaped from trucks and bulldozers quarrying on the rich lahar sand.
There is no map to the place itself, we had to stop a few times to ask directions, and everyone we asked was pleased to provide the right or left sign…all friendly people!
And the not so good surprise…we had cars. And we went through dry soft sand, doing uphill and down climbs, maneuvering the big boulder stone blocks, trying to see through tall almost dry grass, and often asking “Are we lost?”.
The road was a real adventure and could be best enjoyed in 4-wheel drives. You can rent tricycles or jeepneys in Guagua to bring you to the place. It’s best if you guys have cars because it is not part of the routes of the public transportation vehicles. I should warn you though that you need to go to a car wash after, your vehicle will be covered ash because of the dust.
We didn’t bring any chairs or tables and just used the huge rocks as the chairs and table. Some of the other visitors however were smart enough to bring their own chairs and tables. The smartest and most experienced visitors even barbequed on netted steel placed on top of small rocks and submerged their beer and cola in the cool river instead of the bulky Coleman coolers.
On the other side of the river are huts where people can rent for I think less than 50 pesos but they were all taken by the time we arrived just before lunchtime.
The river itself is like a natural water park, upstream is like a pool that is free from rocks and gets deeper as you go up. Downstream is where the big rocks which creates the playground, you can recline on, climb on and other such things you can come up with. Since it is a river it even has its own current. It’s like an all-in-one water park. You can also map the Palakol River once you locate the SCTEX Bridge / Gumain Bridge, one of the tallest bridge in Pampanga. Since the river is directly below the SCTEX Bridge/Gumain Bridge, the bridge basically becomes a shade for people who swim in the river.
Here are more pictures of our fun adveture!
When you do decide to visit the Summer Place/Palakol River, pack up and bring food and even chairs for you guys to enjoy yourselves. I would also suggest that you bring a big piece of cloth too, in order to create a makeshift changing room because they have no bathrooms near there.
Click on Google Maps to check out the location of the Palakol River in Floridablanca, Pampanga.
To learn more about the Palakol River, Check out these blogs, links and videos.