CAGAYAN de Oro City is known to be the river rafting capital of the Philippines. In the early 90s, you may recall that there was a movie starring Meryl Streep called River Wild. That movie was all about river rafting and Kagay-anons were thrilled to watch Ms. Streep on screen navigating the treacherous waters in the movie set. Little do they know that a year after in 1995 did a group of adventurers discovered the potential of Cagayan de Oro as a river rafting haven.

And so this group of adventurers became entrepreneurs. They established a whitewater rafting business in Cagayan de Oro. Slowly, this business grew from word of mouth. (Heck, there was no Internet yet back then.) People who have experienced river rafting here excitedly told their friends in Manila and abroad that whitewater rafting in Cagayan river is cool. And the rest is history.

In fact, there was only one whitewater rafting business in the city then. Now, there are about five. But the good thing is they don’t treat each other as cutthroat competitors. They treat each other more as promoters of Cagayan de Oro. So Cagayan de Oro becomes the whitewater rafting capital of the country.