taal trek happiness!

"Like all great travelers, I have seen more than I remember,
and remember more than I have seen."
--Benjamin Disraeli

after i first set foot on tagaytay and got the feel of the place in 2002, there was never a year that i missed visiting the place. i've experienced the birth of many life-long bonds and heartwarming moments there -- intangible stuff which, aside from the uniquely tagaytay ambience, i look forward to in every visit.

i relish experiencing the beauty of tagaytay and the wonderful sights to see there and from there. from the numerous viewdecks (each one of them unique, i say) of tagaytay, one gets to see the taal lake and the islands in it -- one truly inspiring sight to behold, especially in the early mornings when the fogs let up and reveal the distant islands and during sunset when darkness slowly creeps and blends seemlessly with the mesmerizing scenery making it fade, but with the promise of being seen again along with the next rising of the sun.

with my yearly visits to tagaytay, those distant islands in the lake always caused me to wonder and to imagine a lot of great things. seeing them always reminded me of those times when i used to look into my sibika at kultura book in grade school and i'd be lost in those pages where pictures of the volcano in a lake are printed. for me, back in grade school, the sight was reachable and can be viewed only, at best, in full-colored postcards. needless to say, that changed and i got to see with my own eyes what i only used to see in pictures -- a lake and, in it, distant islands, beckoning.

taal lake as seen from the ridge

one of those distant islands in the lake and the most popular of them all -- by name, at least -- is the taal volcano, reputed to be the world's smallest active volcano. if that does not make taal volcano interesting enough, read what the travel guides say about it. it is believed to be a volcano within a lake within a volcano -- the ridges of tagaytay being remnants of a big, old crater of what used to be a big, big volcano in the biggest island (luzon) of this volcanic archipelago (the philippines) in this part of asia (southeast asia).

last october 11, 2009, which was a sunday -- and a sunshiny sunday to boot -- i laid my what-ifs and what's-in-that-island-thoughts to rest. i set foot on taal volcano and walked all the way to where i could get a full view of the crater, which is hidden when viewed from tagaytay.

setting foot on taal volcano | following the path to see the crater

it was a 4-kilometer uphill walk under the direct heat of the mighty sun with the awesome company of equally adventurous and travel-loving people, most of whom i first met and made friends with in el nido, palawan. for us, a trek is a trek is a trek is a trek...

taal trek buddies!

while most other tourists would opt to rent horses to reach the taal volcano viewpoint, we went for the old school alternative. we spared the horses and exercised our legs and lungs instead.

part of the 4-km regular path going to the crater of the taal volcano

we chose to walk the 4-kilometer regular path up and the 4-kilometer regular path down -- encountering earthworms, mountain snails, crows, malnourished papaya plants, one dead baby cobra, and lots of horse manure along the way. the volcano is gently sloping so the trek isn't really difficult. in fact, our tour coordinator walked with us on her wedge sandals. yes, wedge sandals! way to go.

the taal volcano crater

the sight of the crater is breathtaking. what's interesting about it? it has an island. imagine this: an island (vulcan point) within a crater (taal crater) within an active volcano (taal volcano) within a lake (taal lake) within an old volcano.

vulcan point in taal crater

apart from the sulfuric-smelling steam steadily coming out from some of the rocks we passed by, there's not much to see along the way that i haven't seen in other places. maybe, it's because it's the regular path, after all. i believe taal's secret trail (yes, there is a so-called secret trail which is not really so secret but so named because only a few people opt to take that less popular but more challenging path) would be something else and would reveal a lot of things that are really uniquely taal. there's always a next time, right?

two-hulled sailboats | taal lake yacht club

oh, i love, love, love the boat ride and the sight of colorful catamarans (two-hulled sailboats) in talisay's taal lake yacht club. the lake looked so big and blue and yet so calm; crossing it on our bright yellow boats felt so perfect.

crossing the taal lake on board the yellow boats from the yacht club in talisay

when our boatman lost control of our boat, dalag, and we hit the rear of pawikan (the other boat) even before we could reach taal volcano, i had the time of my life. it was one of those could-have-been very dangerous moments that i ended up enjoying because i had so much faith that the boats will hold together and the big, deep lake will not dare eat us up.

taal trek happiness!

p.s.
(1) may tumalo sa tour coordinator namin... inakyat ang taal na naka-fishnet stockings and high heels! winner!
(2) na-dehydrate ako that day kasi nakalimutan kong uminom ng tubig during the uphill hike. ano ba? haha
(3) mabibilis kami maglakad pero tumagal lang kami sa trek path kasi picture kami ng picture.
(4) ok, ok, enough of this... next trip!

a 'dear diary' entry

"...and when i looked Your light was everywhere!"

pooh. it's my december and nothing much is happening. let's see...

when december came in, i -- as written previously -- bought good reads, hied off to metro manila, enjoyed an afternoon with yoni my travel buddy, had my hair cut a bit, had a hair spa, met with tiff, enjoyed a yellow cab pizza, had a foot spa and a chair massage, invaded a music booth and, with another p6peeps member, made videoke masters out of ourselves. i went back to my place in laguna rather late but the trip was all in all okay and i really had a nice weekend. i saw a fireworks show, too!


12.02.2007: videoke addicts in denial, hehe

i soon had a trip to batangas. i saw gwen garci there but no, thank you, i didn't go there for her – i’m blessed, i had better sights to enjoy! i loved the night air, traveled back to laguna late at night, really felt grateful for my carpool buddies, and slept well.

after a productive workweek, another weekend came and i made a trip to metro manila. i got together with my p6peeps friends in trinoma... ah wait, what was i saying? nothing much's happening? of course, by now, you do realize it's a lie. hahaha! when i say it's MY december, it's NOT an empty claim!

owkey, now, back to my story.

i made a trip to metro manila and got together with the rest of the p6peeps in trinoma. after approximately 75 thousand years, i was finally able to visit trinoma for the first time. whew! one year ago, it was still a facility under construction. sm north used to be my place -- not for any other special reason -- but only because it's the nearest and most accessible shopping/cinema area from my then UP diliman. uh, where was i?

8th of december 2007
saturday

triangle north of manila – trinoma
i enjoyed dinner with the p6peeps in lamesa grill. actually, we took a lot of time deciding where to eat. we went around, went up, went down, then went up and around again before we were able to come up with a decision. typical p6peeps decision-making scheme, i should say! haha.

by the time we got our table in lamesa, we were already very hungry. we must have been really starved because even before the waiters could finish serving all that we've ordered, we were already gobbling up -- and all the food was gone in no time. even my memory failed as i could not recall -- except for the fact that there was an assortment of seafoods served on platters -- the names of the orders we made. after dinner, we still felt our stomachs could take in more -- plus the night was still so young, anyway -- so we swung by the krispy kreme establishment in trinoma and ordered donuts and caffeinated beverages. yum, yum.

magic on the bus
from trinoma, my friends and i rode on a bus to get to our next stop. i was already very sleepy by the time i took my seat and i really wasn't in the mood to do much thinking anymore. with eyes already half-closed, i simply fished twenty-peso bills from my pocket and stretched out my hand just enough so my friends can easily take them bills when it's time for fare. BUT whoa! just soon after the bills left my hand, there were twenties on my palm again. i didn't have to count... i knew by weight approximation that my money already 'grew'.

it seemed my friends pooled their twenties and, when one of them, decided to pay for all of us, dumped the collection of orange bills on my still outstretched hand. i, in turn, unceremoniously dumped all the bills in my pocket and stole a nap... no issue there; because by virtue of p6peeps' magic, the bills became legally mine. :-P

9th of december 2007
sunday

market! market!
i spent the earlier part of the day with the p6peeps guys -- randz, anwar, and edson. we went around and around market! market!, had a lunch of steamed crabs, grilled squid, ampalaya, and liempo 'til we all felt bloated and kept laughing our heads off at randz, our hotseat victim of the day.

we later invaded a music zone booth and gave in to the videoke addicts in us. tiff and jerk came to join us. thanks to randz' curiosity and his restless fingers -- think of 'what does this button do?' here -- we were able to avail of free songs in between the songs that we paid for. eureka! it's better and cheaper than video-singko!!!

"naay libre na song basta..."


12.09.2007: the music booth invasion
after singing our hearts out -- we used up 3 timezone cards, go figure! -- we went for dinner but only after i finally bought myself a konoha headband from comic alley. yoohoo!!! it’s an early birthday gift for myself. i'd been wanting to own one ever since i saw a photo of my friend's son wearing a konoha headband. AND then, one fine day, i finally got one! die-hard naruto fans will surely understand this. hehe.

i received christmas goodies wrapped in christmassy wrappers from my officemates over the next few days. i lost track of how many lunch outs we had. then, another weekend came...

15th of december 2007
saturday

trip to subic
if you could only read the SMS exchanges between yoni and i on the 14th of december, you wouldn't really believe we'd get anywhere. we were, as usual, walay klaro.

i was wanting to go. she was wanting to go. i didn't want to decide on the time. she couldn't decide on the time. she had things on her mind. i had things on my mind. she was tired. i was tired, too. we agreed not to push through with the trip and i said i was gonna make other plans with other people. i tried.. BUT... but... but...

it was already very late in the evening when i sent yoni another message and said i wanted to push through with the trip. she wanted to push through with the trip, too! so...

here’s the 'one-point lesson' from my travel buddy and i: all's well for people who agree on one thing even in the absence of 'detailed plans' -- "kung dayon ka, dayon ko." what’re we travel buddies for if not for that, right?

detailed plans??? what're they?
our gameplan was simple: go to subic and buy some chocolates from duty-free. anything more (or less) than that's something which can be left to fate... or whatever.

getting to subic just by impromptu asking
from laguna, i made my trip to cubao to meet up with yoni. in cubao, yoni and i went to a bus terminal and asked people in uniform how we could get to subic. we were told to ride a bus bound for olongapo city. we did that. we bought our tickets and got on a bus... this was around noon. 3 hours, a long trip spent on some napping, talking, and munching, and several countryside scenes after, we found ourselves in olongapo. at first, we weren't sure about our stop... but all the people started getting off the bus, anyway, so we got off, too. hehe. we were doing real adventure!

"welcome to the city of olongapo!"
yoni and i welcomed ourselves to olongapo. we didn't want any people to take advantage of our being strangers to the place so we pretended nothing was amiss even though deep within us some degree of worry was brewing. wasn't it cool?! we were already in olongapo and we knew subic was just somewhere... and yet we had no idea how to get there. by the way, we had no map with us, too. yup, yup, we had no map!

we stuck to what was safe and found temporary 'refuge' from a nearby mcdo. wahahahaha!!! after our late afternoon snack -- a sundae never fails to do its wonders -- we were finally able to pull together some courage and went up to the nearest security guard and popped the 'question of the hour' -- pa'no po pumunta sa duty-free?

so there... we rode on a jeepney and went to the GATE. we made the mistake of getting off at the other gate though. hehe. we had to walk a bit more before we found whatever it was we were supposed to find – even though when we got there, we still had no idea what it was – we just knew that was already it! more hehehe.

gameplan check -- destination: subic. yup, we got to subic! so check. buy chocolates: yup, we bought chocolates! that's another check. then, what about the bonus adventures??? you mean, like walking around and enjoying the wind, karting, and scouring the weekend market and bargain shopping? heheheeh. we did those, too!!!

giving in to NFS: need for speed
ehhehehe... we went KARTING!!! yup, yup, we gave in to our need for speed! weeeeeeeeeee... karting's always been one of the things which i find fascinating. so when i saw the go-kart circuit in subic bay freeport zone, i really felt the urge to be on a kart and speed-drive around and around!

pictures? except for the built-in cameras of our phones, we didn't have a camera with us... but we do have photo souvenirs of our karting stint in subic; we just haven't uploaded them yet. in the meantime, here's a photo of my other ever-loyal travel buddies...


"kung dayon ka, dayon pud ko"
anyway, yoni and i did not get lost in subic and we're able to accomplish what we went there for, after all. we were able to buy our chocolates -- supposedly yoni's chocolates only but, hey, when i saw them chocolates i wanted to buy them, too. yup, yup, those chocolatey goodies and more.

we realized we didn't have much time to explore the entire place since we had to make our way back to manila by 7pm. while we were walking around, we took a mental note of the places we won't be able to see just so we could check them out the next time we'll be back there. yup, we've got plans of going back there! as to when... we don't know how soon… or late for that matter. what we know for sure is this: basta kung dayon ka, dayon ko.

it was already 10pm when we reached cubao. i was supposed to make the trip all the way back to laguna but it was already late so i decided to sleep over at my aunt's house in makati. the next day, i woke up early and brought myself to laguna just in time for my tagaytay trip with the p6peeps.

just to make one thing clear, the whole point of our subic trip was not really about the chocolates. it was about getting to subic without any clear idea how to get there and without contingency plans whatsoever.

it has always been on my to do list to just get on the bus and hie off to wherever it takes me. i'd like to think i’ve taken at least one step closer to that.

there and back again
i'd like to say 'there and back again'. in just a span of 24 hours, i went through both the north and south luzon expressways twice and still went further.

whew! call it a marathon trip. from laguna to cubao to subic to cubao to makati to laguna to tagaytay. it was tiring a bit -- i won't deny that -- but it was what i wanted for a birthday celebration. it's my way of simply declaring, hey world, i'm 25! weeehooooo!

the 15th-16th of december weekend was the weekend before my birthday and, because my birthday fell on a workday, i sought ways to celebrate it ahead! BUT then again, if you take a look at MY december, it's safe to say it's really a month-long birthday celebration... hahaha.

16th of december 2007
sunday

p6peeps' day-out in tagaytay
since i first went to tagaytay in 2002, i have yet to miss a year. 2002 -- i was there. 2003 -- i was there, too. same goes for 2004, 2005, 2006 (i was there twice!!), and now, 2007. tagaytay's definitely one of my fave places and, what luck, i'm currently living just very, very near it! hehe.


12.16.2007: 5 p6peeps at the picnic grove

12.16.2007: fun by the pine tree | spot the difference!
tagaytay. check. great friends. check. cool wind. check. great natural smell. check. nice greenery. check. bargain shopping. check. mushroomburger trip. check. meaningful adventures with drizzles and fogs. check. happy times. check.


12.16.2007: life is good...
more, more, more
more christmas goodies in christmassy wraps came. my birthday came and, of course, the birthday greetings came, too -- THANKS, THANKS FOR ALL THE GREETINGS AND THE GIFTS!!! -- hehe. i shared birthday chocolates and ice cream. i bought myself another birthday gift – a design-it-yourself starbucks tumbler, yehey! our company's christmas party came and we had a fun trip to ayala-alabang village where we celebrated and even had videoke and dance craze bonding. we got entertained by a superb choral group, too! on the last workday before christmas, we had christmas lunch and milestone celebration at poquito mas.

21st-22nd of december 2007
friday night & saturday

tiff and jerk's 2nd wedding anniversary & p6peeps' christmas party
whew!!! so what if the christmas rush traffic was very, very horrible? i had so much fun! videoke fever 'til the early morning hours... and seemingly non-stop dance revo craze right after!!! wooohooo!! my throat didn't hurt from all that singing but fatigue sure set in because of all those dance revo steps i had to do. for crying out loud, my legs still hurt as i write!

23rd of december 2007
sunday

home, here i am!!!
"christmas won't be christmas without any presents," says jo march in little women. i say, "christmas won't really be christmas if not spent at home."

so, here i am, grateful that i have a real home to call all these years... and really happy and proud to be home with my family.

i'm home and gunning for adventures... hometown peeps, what's the gameplan? ehehe.

HAVE A HAPPY CHRISTMAS AND A GREAT NEW YEAR, Everyone!

another weekend, another trip

"Wherever you go, no matter what the weather,
always bring your own sunshine."
--Anthony J. D'Angelo

early last week, the ids99 peeps in metro manila (and nearby places) received through text and e-mail a notice for a laguna weekend. everyone seemed interested to be part of the trip until the threat of a super-typhoon loomed and the plan seemed to fizzle.

BUT when saturday (december 2) came, the laguna weekend got pushed through! my ex-travel buddy (read: yoni), yeli, and i hied off to los baños (LB) to meet up with our hosts for the weekend, kenny and eldani -- whooo, rhyming names!


12.02-03.06 destination: laguna!
except that we walked the distance from the cubao mrt station to the bus terminal where we boarded the bus that took us to los baños, yoni, yeli and i reached our destination in laguna without much difficulty. well, we had to endure walking through people traffic and under the heat of the late afternoon sun in cubao. we also had to ask a lot of people for help along the way since we're not quite familiar with LB despite having gone there before... but, all-in-all, getting to laguna from metro manila was a nice travel experience.

it helped a lot that kenny was being a responsible host. after giving us instructions on how we could get to his place via a jeepney, he waited for us at the corner leading to his house. if he had not, we could have gone past his place and we would have found ourselves temporarily lost.

the night stroll in UPLB grounds
when we got to LB, it was already close to sundown. however, we still had to wait for the couple, rose and ilian, before we could finalize our plan for the night... so we waited for their arrival from sta. rosa.

so as to make the most of our time there, kenny gave us a night tour around the UPLB (university of the philippines - los baños) campus grounds... aside from introducing the landmarks and sharing a lot of trivia, kenny also told us maria makiling stories along the way. both yoni and i agree that he has a bright future at being a tour guide!


just some of our early evening photos
uh, actually, we had no exact plan for our laguna weekend. we just went to laguna and it was a come-what-may situation from there. we figured, we could either go hiking then camping or night swimming... either in hot or cold pool...

bad news, good news... you can never tell
it was around dinnertime when i received rose's text message saying she and ilian won't be joining us in los baños after all. because our expectations have already been built up, kenny, eldani, yoni, yeli, and i really felt disappointed. we tried to convince them to change their minds. however, our all-out efforts were not enough. they have decided.

then and there, our party of five decided, too. we're gonna have a blast... enjoy the weekend... elicit their envy!!! mwehehehehe... how very immature! well, if the succeeding pictures are to be taken as proofs, that decision did us good!

at this point, allow me to say that this write-up is dedicated to my laguna weekend partymates and, more importantly, to those who did not join us despite having been invited. :P

in this article are doses of what you've missed... kung inggit kayo, tama lang 'yan. mainggit kayo! bwahahaahaah...


fun dinner by candlelight at LB square
had rose and ilian joined us in LB, our party would have gone night swimming. after they rejected our "please get here" pleas for the nth time, we gave up and... dyan dyaraaaaaaaan... we scrapped swimming and decided to drive to tagaytay instead.

from laguna to tagaytay
after dinner, we all got inside eldani's car and off to tagaytay we went!!! BUT first, we made a stopover at sta. rosa...


some shopping and pictorial
we went inside the nike store, looked around, and enjoyed 'chronicling' yeli's shopaholic tendencies.

tagaytay, tagaytay!
the drive to tagaytay was quite long but it was far from boring. there was so much to talk and laugh about along the way, especially since we're all of the same age and iliganons and, therefore, have a lot in common.

the december night air that greeted us when we got to tagaytay was so cold to the skin. nevertheless, i was glad that we brought ourselves there that night. after all, tagaytay happens to be a place so dear to me...

laguna in tagaytay
we went inside cafe lupe. while the guys negotiated for a table, us gals went straight to the railing where we could still make out the silhouette of the taal volcano. for a moment, yoni mistook taal lake for laguna lake. hahaha... finding laguna in tagaytay, eh?? under the canopy of a star-lit sky, yes!

how's LAGUNAYTAY for a destination, huh?


enjoying the night inside cafe lupe
yeli aptly put it when she said this with amused expression: "kuyaw kaayo ta ba. sa manila dili jud ta tig-bar, tapos nianhi tag tagaytay para mag-bar!" (translation: we're weird. in manila, we don't go to bars... but we came to tagaytay for a bar!) hehehe...

the way i see it, when we're in manila, we just don't want to do what others usually do... instead, we'd rather have the things that bring us closer to home -- like inom sa balay. we don't go to bars despite the fact that, for people in manila, the idea of a night life is almost always associated with "bars".

tagaytay is not metro manila... and i think this is our excuse for being in cafe lupe that night. :)

it was a fun night! we saw the performance of two bands -- one fronted by a male and female duo whose singing and fashion styles failed to pass our vocal and fashion tastes, and another fronted by monique, a lady performer whose talent and looks more than compensated for what the other band lacked.

it was monique's momma though who got the crowd's loudest cheers that night. her cool momma belted out alicia keys' if i ain't got you and chaka khan's through the fire oh so well. we all became momma's instant fans!!!


photo op with the lady performer's cool momma
when we were about to leave the place, we played starstruck and requested for a photo op with the singing momma. it turned out, the momma was a bisaya herself. she hails from cebu... and she's the one wearing pink in the pictures.


party of five in tagaytay
yeli, kenny, yoni, eldani and i
on our way back to laguna, i fought off sleep by counting how many "colette's" signs we passed by starting from tagaytay. i managed to count 14 although i knew there were more -- some signs were not discernable due to the dark.

we were supposed to still go to "kenny's bar" in LB, but when we already got there, we changed our minds and instead opted for sleep. understandably so, it was already way past midnight and we were tired from traveling and the unexpected turns that we had to go through.

back in laguna

ah, what's the story here?
however, wonder of wonders, when we finally got to our hosts' apartment, yoni and i got back the energy to fight off sleep. i played five-star sudoku while she took pictures of yeli, kenny and eldani. after awhile, i got tired of my chosen mindbleeder so i helped yoni with taking pictures...

look at what we did to my mineral water bottle! see the san mig strong ice label? mwehehehe. it's a memento from our tagaytay night.

eldani's excuse for hitting the mattress ahead of us? "kamo daw kuno mag-drive pa-tagaytay beh."

in the end, it was still yoni and i who went to sleep ahead of the rest. eldani's trip to dreamland was interrupted by the arrival of kenny's friends for their "nightcap". us gals were also invited to join the gang but only yeli gave in to the invitation. yoni and i preferred to have our zzz's -- it was already near 2 o'clock in the morning.

sunday, 3rd of december


12.03.06: one fine sunday morning
when we woke up, it was another happy day. after a morning photo-session, yeli, yoni, eldani, and i went out for an early morning drive and to buy liters of fresh milk (actually we bought liters of chocomilk) from DTRI (dairy training and research institute), while kenny prepared breakfast...

after our hearty breakfast, we all got inside eldani's car again and had another morning drive. we stopped by UPLB's main library and had another photo-session -- this time, in front of the campus' famous pegarao.


pegarao: the pegasus and carabao hybrid

the eldani and kenny show

enjoying pook ni maria makiling


pa-picture-picture lang

12.03.06 laguna getaway moments
...and that pretty well tells the story of our laguna-turned-lagunaytay weekend.

what can i say? we're the masters of spontaneity. we make do with whatever circumstances come our way... and we make excellent springboards out of setbacks.

'til next time... whenever that will be!


p.s.

here's how our text/email exchanges went after our lagunaytay weekend:

Kenny: Thanks for spending your Weekend at Los Baños with me and Eldani, it was such a great time...

Yoni: Nalingaw jud ko even if daghan set backs. Infernez na offset jud ang akong hell week sa office. Basta kay lingaw jud given the unforseen circumstances. Asa pa ka nakakita ug Laguna weekend nga nag midnight sa Tagaytay, wahehehe!!!

Val: Dili jud ta palpak. We know how to weather circumstances.

Yeli: Salamat for making my first outing with high school batchmates memorable. Lingaw man diay noh. Sa uulitin...