Philippines: Talisay and Lake Taal

Unfortunately, my camera died during our first full day in the Philippines. Don't worry, I'll just "borrow" some pictures from Jen and Maud.

These pictures were taken at our first hostel in Talisay. Looking at the map, Talisay is just between Manila and Batangas. Batangas was our next stop.


From Talisay we took a boat toward the center of Lake Taal to hike the Taal Volcano. The volcano juts out of the lake and inside the volcano is another smaller lake. Of course, when I was packing and thinking, "Oooh! We're going to see a volcano!" I didn't exactly think I should pack intense hiking gear. I don't know why. I can now say that 1) I've hiked a volcano and 2) I've hiked a volcano wearing a casual denim skirt and the worst (most un-athletic) shoes possible. I can't complain. Some of the guys wore flip flops.

It took about an hour to get to the top. The local Filipinos provide transportation to the top in the form of fatigued donkeys and horses. The guide will either hop on behind you or lead the animal ahead of you. Either way, we walked. And walked. About halfway up I had to embrace the mentality that it's ok to walk at my own pace. So I did. And took some good mental pictures.

We got to the top and bought some water that the locals were selling (at three times the normal price). We stayed up for as long as we could, but the heat coming from the ground and the center of the volcano was a bit uncomfortable. We walked back down and took the boat back to our hostel. If we did nothing else, I was glad we did that.

When we got back to the hostel, the house mother/owner cooked lunch and announced that she was planning on upping the price that afternoon. So with our low-budget attitude we ate, tried to bargain, and caught a Jeepney (and a bus) to Batangas.

This is where it starts to get funny.

Before I write about Batangas and Puerto Galera, here are pictures from Talisay.

From the hostel you could see a portion of the volcano (and of course the boat that took us there)



Note that the sign says Foothills RESORT.


Did you ever have a RESORT bathroom that looked like this. Note the bucket that was used as a flushing assistant.


View of the Foothills patio where we had breakfast and lunch the first day.


Inside the Taal Volcano. Pictures don't really capture it all.



The view from the top to the second lookout.


Sandbag steps at the top.