Taal Volcano… December 29, 2008

And so it begins…

This is the trip tha t started my travels throughout 2009. It all started with a pre-Christmas discussion with Jasper, Kent, and Dru about how I always wanted to go to certain places like Taal Volcano, Mt. Pinatubo, see Mayon Volcano, etc. With me kasi, puro nalang plano ng plano, hanggang plano lang.

For Taal Volcano, I am sure that anyone who has ever been to Tagaytay will have seen those guys along the road with “Boat Ride to Taal” signs. So I have always been curious. Anyway, I was saying… “you know, I always wanted to go to Taal Volcano itself… the crater.”

And so right there and then Jasper goes… “sige, tara…” And that’s how it all started. We set a date and that was it. With all of the Christmas-related activities we figured Dec 29 was a good enough day.

I picked up everyone around 6-6:30 am from respective meet points in Pasig, Shaw, and Boni then we headed to Tagaytay.

View Taal Volcano in a larger map

When we got to Tagaytay, we looked for that road near Picnic Grove which brings you down to the water where we get a boat. We ignored a number of those guys holding signs till will got half-way down and finally flagged one down. We followed his motorcycle down to some pier looking place. We parked the car and got on the boat.

The boat trip itself to the volcano was quite… wet. The water was not calm at all, and by the time we got to the volcano we were kinda… wet. Boat ride cost us P1,500.

 

When we got to the island we were presented with two options to the crater, walk up the side of the volcano, or take a horse. I found the novelty of taking the horses up interesting. So it while costly (don’t remember how much it cost) we took the horses.

The trip up took around 45 min or so. All in all the horse trip was fun. After all, how many chances does one have to do horseback riding in the Philippines. Traditionally its something to do in Baguio right?

If anyone ever does this, I do suggest that you go early… at around 9 am, konti lang tao. We saw more people as we were going back down.

I have always seen Taal Volcano from Tagaytay, so I kinda had some expectations about what we would see. I was wrong. When we got op there… it was a breathtaking sight!

 

was a little adventurous so I went to some precarious spots.

not evident in the picture above is the fact that its a steep drop all around me!

Our guide kept on bring us to all of these corners around the top of the crater viewing area.

We could have gone to the water, but it was getting late and were hungry for lunch. In retrospect, we should have gone down.

All in all, it was a great trek. Little did I know there would be many more adventures to follow. This was a simple drive, asking around about the volcano, and just following instructions. What were to follow became increasingly more complicated.

And thus was born… a LAKWATSERO!

Update (3/13/2010) – I would eventually return to Taal… and go down there to the crater
http://lakwatsero.me/2010/03/13/back-to-taal-volcano-and-into-the-crater-march-13-2010/

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