Taal Volcano (Jan 11)

On yet another of Rissa's Harebrained Ideas, I took the balikbayans to climb Taal Volcano. It is a world known tourist attraction and the famed island in a lake within an island in a lake within an island. Rachelle's cousin Louie came,and KM and Simon.

Anyway, we ended up getting dropped off in Tagaytay. After going to a horrid bar with horrid music, we went to a decent bar with decent music, but an awful sewer smell. Rachelle and I roomed together in a creepy room with a palm sized spider, dirty "sheets" and no water. I hadn't quite intended for it to be a roughing it out kind of weekend but that's basically what happened. The next day, it started raining during breakfast, and we were quite upset about our plans getting rained out. It did however ease up a bit and we continued our little adventure.


after waiting at Jollibee, we found a tricycle driver who offered us a boat package to Taal Volcano. We thought he was really nice, but not so quite. I'd rather not dwell on the negative, so I wont go into detail about what happened with him and the resort.



It was a 15 minute boat ride across the lake to Taal Volcano. Check out the fancy boat gas tank





The trail was not promising. It smelled like a giant pot of horse poo. They kept offering us to ride on the horses for a small fee, but the things were really pathetic looking, so we walked our merry way up while dodging piles of poo.


we got this yo'




great vistas along the way


i'm not dying on this climb


volcanic rock


I have no idea


lake in the middle of Taal Volcano


and the baby island


phew tired!


and down the mountain we go. It was raining much harder on the way back, so the trail was much more slippery. We wouldn't have minded except for the fear that the horses would also slip and crush us.

Of course the story ends happily and we made it all in one piece, though the smell of horse poo does linger in our minds