Volcanic Activity

Our latest “home away from home” has been south of Manila, in the Tagaytay highlands. A lovely hilly area, it often has high winds and it is noticeably cooler than Manila. It is also home to a dormant volcano in the middle of Taal Lake.  It’s curious, because this volcanic crater is on an island in the middle of a large round lake that is also surrounded by tall ridges reminiscent of an extremely large crater. A crater within a crater, so to speak. Nobody admits that there was an original monster volcano that started all this, but as I say, it is curious.

We took the day tour to the island, starting out, as usual, in a tricycle. All the way down the ridge to the lake, the driver zipped along hairpin turns and confidently ignored all the warning signs: “Dangerous Curve”, “Prone to Landslide”, etc. We came to a sliding stop at a boat launch, staggered out and paid the fee for the boat trip. The water trip was much slower. In fact, there were times I suspected transmission issues (do boats have transmissions?) as the driver would rev the motor very high as we were coasting, only to jolt us forward as if the correct gear was found. The two young men driving were joking and tootling the horn as we plowed toward the island.

 Upon arrival, we were guided to the horse fee area. There, they sold us 2 horses (at least, it seemed we paid enough to have bought them) along with a dust mask and set of gloves. They didn’t bother giving us riding lessons, unfortunately. One of us grew up riding, even if it was on a water buffalo, but I had not sat on a moving target like this for more than 40 years.  At least I wasn’t expected to steer. The horse was accompanied by its very own handler who walked beside us until we were past the “speed bumps” – branches laid across the pathway – and then just blithely leaped on behind. The horse was obviously annoyed and kicked up his heels a little, causing me to grab on a little tighter to the saddle horn. My handler was very solicitous, however, and several times asked me if I was okay, to which I replied, “at least I’m still on top”.

 He was informative, too, explaining that hubby’s horse was young so that’s why that lucky guy got to ride alone, with his handler running alongside. I didn’t envy that handler. The dirt trail wound upwards around rocks and along a ridge, but although it was dusty in spots, it wasn’t very steep. When we reached the landing area, I gratefully dismounted, gave my valiant steed a pat, and said, “Thank you, but I think I’ll walk down”.

The whole island is the volcano, with small craters scattered around and on it. We were taken to the largest one, but caught a view of a couple of spots on the hills where steam was rising. The main crater is a fair size, with the lake inside the crater about 1 km across. The water inside is a deep green colour, and high cliffs surround it. High on one side they have set up a shelter, complete with vendors to sell drinks and fruits. It didn’t take us nearly as long as we had expected to get up to the view point and see the sights, and it wasn’t long before we set off for the dusty walk back. I was pleased to see we weren’t the only ones walking, dodging the horses coming up. We got back on our boat and then our tricycle and managed to arrive in the main city in time for our halo-halo lunch.

A place in the highlands known as “Picnic Grove” is very popular, maybe because it was printed as “Picnic Groove” in several flyers we saw and people just misinterpreted the intent. There are places to sit and eat, but if you want a real table you have to pay. It also has horseback rides, a zipline, and a fish spa. 

“Pedicure by fish” goes the sign out front, so of course we couldn’t resist. They washed our feet, then had us sit over large fish aquariums, full of fish about 3 inches in length. The little silver things could see us coming and came up to the top of the water ready for us to lower our toes. They were so eager I guess they don’t get fed much. Immediately they started nibbling on our feet, not with teeth but with the hard cartilage around their mouths so that it definitely felt like a nibble. Or like dozens of nibbles all at once. On sensitive areas like toes and ankles and the bottoms of our feet. It was impossible to restrain a giggle or two, and maybe even a shriek from me, at first. After 10 minutes, we had gotten used to the feeling and then they moved us to a new tank. The new fish were suckers, and when they latched onto your skin, they vibrated all the way up to the surface, then detached and started at the bottom again. An incredible experience to be sure.

We spent two weeks in the area, traveling by bus to visit friends and to look for clean beaches to swim in, and checking out the local restaurants as our resort was little more than a hotel room with no cooking facilities.  As normal, we found good places and bad places. A good one was 2 kilometers downhill from our hotel. The place was called Sonja’s Garden and they have created a beautiful bed and breakfast with restaurant and health spa included. They grow all their vegetables and fruits and bake everything from scratch. They only have a set menu, so as soon as you sit down the food starts arriving at your table. Everything is healthy, including the local lemonade style drink provided. For some reason, they don’t consider wine as healthy. Go figure. Other than that, everything was superb, and keeping with the whole “healthy” theme, hubby and I walked back up the 2 km hill instead of taking local transit. As great as the food was, we figured we were only going there once.

For most of the time that we have been in the area  we have been walking around, looking at the many subdivision and gated communities that merely held cement roads with no homes built yet. The prices they quote for any prospective houses are priced high even by Canadian standards. I guess they expect a population explosion. Maybe even a volcanic one.

W