At 6:30 PM on Friday, Laura, Maud, and I head up to the big red bird/ruler sculpture thing at the front of the school to meet the people we were going to the Philippines with. First, we met Ronan, the French surfer dude that had already been to the Philippines 3 times; he was our "guide". The last time he was in the Philippines, he got arrested by the Filipino police because they thought he was a rebel since he had been walking up this hill toward the rebel camp , unbeknownst to him. The police then had to call HKUST to make sure he actually was a student and everything! So that should give you a pretty good idea of the kind of journey on which we were about to embark. Afterward, Matt, a cool British guy, and the 3 Norwegians showed up.
The adventure began right away as we were chasing after buses with all our luggage. The mark of a true virgin of a traveler, I brought a freaking duffle bag without a shoulder strap, a backpack, AND a purse! We finally arrived at the airport after like 4 modes of transportation, had some Burger King and hopped on our CebuPacific Air plane. The flight was fine for me as I've learned the wonders of Dramamine - I went right to sleep, but poor Laura was getting hit on the head by this 4 year-old that was screaming and growling...yes growling, like the whole way there.
At midnight, we got in the van Ronan had "negotiated" that would take us to our first stop, Talisay. We arrived in this dark town around 3 in the morning, and some how, we found an open "resort." The toilet was interesting, to flush it, you had to turn on this faucet that ran into a bucket, then flush, then dump the water out of the bucket into the drain on the floor. Oh yeah, there's just a shower head, no shower surrounding and it's just cold water...but it was all part of the adventure! The next morning, I woke up to one of the most beautiful places I'd ever seen. We were right on this beautiful lake - Lake Ta'al. Everything was green and the birds were singing! Our "auntie" (the hotel owner) had even cooked us breakfast! (but I was too afraid to eat much since it was my first meal in the Philippines and about 2/3 of our friends that had already been had gotten severely ill...so I ate the 2 pieces of white bread) We took this cool wooden boat with a crazy loud motor across the lake to the volcano in the middle - the Ta'al Volcano! When we stepped off the boat, these local girls were jumping all over us trying to sell us stuff and people were trying get us to hire these poor donkey/horses to take us up to the top, but Ronan said we were "trekking." We sure trekked. It was incredible and incredibly hot! When we finally reached the top...WOW! Gorgeous. There was another lake IN the volcano we'd just hiked up. Unfortunately the pictures don't capture the real beauty.
When we got back to the hotel, we had to pack up in like 15 minutes because apparently they were trying to charge us extra or something. That afternoon we traveled to Batangas by jeepney and bus. Jeepney's are these crazy trucks that were brought over from America during some war and now they use them for public transportation! (To be continued...I have to go to sleep.)
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