Mambukal Mountain Resort needed a facelift, and that is what it is getting.
Located at the slopes of mighty Mt. Kanlaon, only 40 minutes away from the downtown area of Bacolod City, in fact jeepney fare is only P8 per passenger, the resort teems with people during weekend as this writer saw for himself, recently.
I saw Mambukal for the first time around two years ago and if not for the seven waterfalls that one can see in a half-day easy trek, the place had no resort facilities to talk of that time and we learned that it was under the management of a private group which promised to develop the place but never did.
This forced the provincial government to get involved and so new plans were made to develop the area covering new attractions and better lodging facilities. We were told that other cities and municipalities in Negros also got involved in the funding, making it a province-wide effort.
For one, the place now boasts of two brand new and first-class swimming pools in lieu of the old, that was hardly maintained by the previous resort administrator, at least from what we saw two years ago. However for people with limited budgets, they can still use the stream around the area with its natural pool to swim in at no cost.
Six quadruplex type of lodging facilities, or a total of 24 air-conditioned rooms were being built, some of them operational already and made available to the public, like the room we used and paid R800 for an overnight stay.
At that time, the room had two double deck beds, its own bathroom (sorry still no hot water), a lot of cupboards, and a mini kitchen, but no cooking facilities as yet. Also, the glass windows had no venetian blinds yet and construction workers were still at work outside and could see into the room and the bathroom, now with our wife and two daughters with us, that would have been quite a show so we had to ask the Mambukal Lodge to cover the windows with bedsheets temporarily to provide privacy.
When it comes to paying the rooms, either pay in advance at the front desk when you register or hope that by the time you find time to visit Mambukal, the resort would have found a system that will enable you to pay from your room upon checking out, otherwise, it is a long walk to the front desk from the rooms.
A fast food court is supposed to be opened near the pool but for the meantime, like the way we did, people can eat in the small eateries just outside the gate of the resort, food is good and inexpensive, a hearty breakfast of fried rice, eggs, luncheon meat, and corned beef, canned varieties, plus coffee and mineral water cost us around R150 for 4 people, a simple lunch was even cheaper, just over a hundred bucks.
But then the indoor facilities and room service inadequacies are more than made up by what is available outside. Aside from the pools, for one, there is also a man-made lagoon where people can rent boats, there is an outdoor open area where functions can be held, I even saw some tents pitched there, a lot of picnic tables, then the newly-constructed "Slide For Life", a rock climbing wall, and the canopy walk going to the first waterfalls.
The very fact that wherever you look you are surrounded by giant trees, and a lot of them bear identifying cards, and inhaling the clean mountain air, that by itself is part of Mambukal’s natural attraction.
For the slide, it is about 60 feet high, built at a slope with a lot of trees around and when you slide, using a safety harness, the descent is about 60 feet long also into the ground, that time, it was still free but this time, people have to pay per slide.
The climbing wall was 28 feet high with a lot of handholds and footholds that even children can easily reach the top as my 10-year-old kid did, but took her more than 8 minutes, this writer did it in less than a minute, which tells you it is easy.
The best addition is the canopy walk going to the first falls, what they did was construct six hanging bridges, from the very last bridge, it’s just a 5-minute walk to the falls, reminder though, people are not allowed to take a swim in the natural pool below the water falls, supposedly for safety reasons, and there is a guard posted in the area to implement that.
People are also discouraged from doing the full trek of the seven falls, we were told that the trails lack safety ropes and are rough, and so we ended up admiring the first falls only.
But whenever you are in Bacolod, a trip to the nearby Mambukal Mountain Resort is worth it.
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