Kampojuan 4.81

KampoJuan was never quite conceived as a resort or adventure park as such. What it is today, or what it has become, is really a story of an idea that evolved from the simple, sometimes quirky, creative musings of Dr. Juan Acosta, eminent crop scientist, agriculturist-farmer, and longtime “friend of the Earth”.

Dr. JCA, as he is better known, transformed from 2007 what was an idle expanse of ten hectares into a wooden farmland and mini pineapple plantation, primarily for his unique varieties such as his signature “Ulam Pine.”

Over time, Dr. JCA would marvel at the breathtakingly beautiful features of the property: a flat agricultural terrain that dropped into a forested gorge marked by a steep rock cliff rising dramatically from the Diklum River. To the north of the ravine was Pulog Hill, a backdrop of even more lush foliage.

Dr. JCA saw vast recreational potential in this rugged countryside. He had a hanging bridge built over the river, a 250-foot drop, connecting both sides of the craggy ravine. Parallel this bridge, albeit longer, he had a quarter-kilometer zipline directly above the river. These were the initial “Adventure Series” of what the family would now call “KampoJuan”.

Then soonafter an eco-designed bamboo and cogon-thatched pavilion rose by the ridge, now planted to a variety of trees, From this pavilion a first-of-its-kind “Anicycle” came to be: a novel 300-meter, thrill inducing bicycle ride on a suspended cable over the river’s edge.

When KampoJuan opened in mid-2011, it was more a homegrown, rustic, off-the-beaten-track place to visit, trek, have picnics – and try these new adventure rides. Today, with two large pools lined with soft blue-green Bukidnon-mangima stones, a “green-design” eco-lodge that could house over 60 to 80 guests, and a century-old ancestral house from Northern Luzon reconstructed within its premises as a bed-and-breakfast heritage structure, KampoJuan has cerrtifiably become one of the region’s go-to, must-see places of quiet retreat, rest and “ecology and heritage-based” recreation.