Taal Lake and Volcano: Our first excursion outside Metro Manila


We took our first excursion out of metro Manila  to visit Taal Lake and Volcano.  The volcanic eruptions caused the lake to be created about 100,000 years ago. The volcano is semi dormant. Its last eruption was in 1965. It is about 40km south of Manila. Some friends from our ward invited us to go with them. It was a beautiful drive. We passed lots of pineapple fields, yum! I loved getting out the city and seeing the beautiful country side. 





There are a lot of spots a long the way to the top. Each view gets better and better. Here is the view from one of our stops up to the top of the mountain.




At the base of the mountain there were a lot of fruit stands. We had the best pineapple of our lives and went home with four.


See that giant fruit in the bottom right corner. It was the fruit of the weekend. You cannot see it in this picture but it has a bumpy texture all over and looks prickly. Itake. is called a jackfruit. We got to try some after our day at Taal Lake below. It was pretty good. I thought it tasted similar to a cantalope.


Cosette is eating better. She likes the frest bananas. In the past she had problems wiht bananas but so far she is okay with the fresh ones. We are so happy/relieved she is eating better.



As we were walking up the hill to the main look out section Lyndon said, "here is an old tree," talking about this tiny tree. Aparantly it is old in the sense that it has been around since dinosaur times. He wanted a picture with the tiny "old" tree.  


We passed a calamansi tree on our way up. You can see the tiny fruit haning off the tree. I talked about it in this post.





The place we walked up to is called people's park in the sky.  Par is missing from the sign. You can kind of see it in the top right corner of the picture a church that sits higher on the mountain. It is beautiful. There is also a giant statue of Christ kind of like in Rio next to the church. The park provided the best view of the lake and caldera.







It was so beautiful at the top. You could see forever.


It looked like it was going to storm all day. We just enetered into the raininy season.


This pineapple hut thing made me laugh. My first thought was "who lives in a pineapple under the sea"? I guess we do at least in this picture.





There are a lot of different islands out in the lake. You can take boats out to the islands. If you want to go to the caldera you can take a boat and then ride up to it on horses. It looked like it was going to rain so we skipped that but I want to go back and do it. It did pour like crazy on the way home so we all agreed we were happy we were not on the island riding a horse. Next time.



A close up of the caldera.


The flowers here are all really pretty vibrant colors.


We rode a jeepnee down the mountain. I do not recommend ever riding one. I felt like we were all going to die of carbon monoxide poisoning. I guess riding in one is part of the experience.


 We ended the trip with a delicious lunch at this place called Sonya's Garden. All the food is grown on the premesis. There is beautiful scented garden next to the restaurant. We got to try some stevia while there which is a all natural sweetner.



Remember that fruit with the bumpy spikey outside? Here is what it looks like on the inside. It is pretty delicious too!


And here is the cutest baby!
It was an enjoyable day.


Comments

  1. That looks like an amazing trip! And that is the cutest baby - she's so adorable!

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