Outdoor ‘adventurescape’

YOU can literally tell your friends you’ve been to the heights of adventure.

Ecotourism is what Adventure Café is all about. Located along the Transcentral Highway in Barangay Gaas, Balamban, near the border of Cebu City, the café offers not just food that goes with the spirit of adventure and the outdoors, but also a choice of activities that takes one out into nature’s abundance of fresh air, blue sky and green hills.

Updates on President Benigno Aquino III's presidency

The structure of the café is in three levels, all looking out into distant valleys. The roof deck is where one sets out to swing into the air via a zipline, or to go down, rappelling to the bottom of the building.

From there, one could also choose to wall-climb back up. Soon, the café will set up a rope course, which is an obstacle course—but you’re walking on a wire. Other adventures that can be had near the café are spelunking, nature trekking and swimming in a nearby pool below a waterfall.

The café is a work in progress and is owned by 15 residents in the area who actually live there or have their second homes there, to enjoy the coolness of the place that, according to the old folks in the area, was named Gaas because of the winds that tore down leaves and branches (nagasgas)

These partners envision the place to hum with nature lovers and adventure seekers.

Eventually they will have horseback riding and will set up a dormitory or hostel type of building for those who want to stay the night or linger for some days to savor the crisp, cool mountain air and the vista of undulating greens under blue skies. To make it a tourist stop, they will also have a place for fruit and vegetable vendors to display their goods.

If plans of some artists like Jun Impas pushes through, this will also be an artists’ village, where local artists can have their studio and/or display their work.

While these are in the planning or setting up stage, Adventure Café is ready with its zipline, rappel and wall-climb adventures, and aptly named food to set you off on a gustatory adventure like: Burgers Crossing (cheesy beef patties on a bun with tomatoes, cucumber, lettuce, grilled onions and French fries); Zipliner’s Steak (sizzling burger patties with creamy mushroom gravy sauce, French fries and corn on the cob); Belly Back Pack (grilled pork belly marinated with traditional Filipino sauce, served with rice, corn cobs, French fries and seasoned veggies).

To warm your tummy, there’s Hot Spring Soup (creamy pumpkin soup topped with boneless anchovies) and Farmer’s Trail Corn Soup (boiled ham and corn bits in special soup stock). The drinks are all under the heading “Survival Canisters” and pica-pica to go with the drinks like sisig and quesadillas, and the Fullutan Adventures.

The place touts itself as “The First Philppine Adventure Café.” For Cebu, it certainly is, and a welcome place away from indoor computer games, Internet cafes and the boob tube.