Parada ng Lechon

June 24, The feast day of Saint John the baptist. We went to Balayan Batangas for the feast and the lechon parade. We were supposed to leave Ortigas by 7AM but I overslept so we left by 8AM. This will be our followup roadtrip after our Pahiyas last year. 

We haven't been to the town of Balayan and barely in Batangas yet but water is already been thrown at passing vehicles. The road going through the church is closed so we have to park way outside the town. It was a long walk to church. We got wet through that long walk.

This is where we parked outside town

Immaculate Conception Church

We arrived there about 10, the mass in Immaculate Conception Church is scheduled by 7AM and the parade follows after that. We thought we were not going to see the parade but the parade was still there.

Feast of St. John the Baptist involves water, means people will get wet. Good thing we brought extra clothes. What we should also have brought with us are water guns, canons just to get even to these locals.

We got soaked

It was almost noon, we would like to find a place where we can eat lechon but we failed to find a restaurant. I read a blog where they too did not find any place to eat in Balayan. He is right. Good thing Mang Tomas, the Lechon sarsa brand had this stand where there's free food. 

Mang Tomas stall. Free food

We went to Taal in the afternoon. We would see the heritage town and the Taal Basilica. There we asked a girl who sold us candles where we could eat. She suggested this place which is just two blocks down the road, Don Juan BBQ. We ordered a lot but unfortunately they do not have Tawilis. The other food we ordered was good we ate a lot. The tapang taal though is not what i expected. It tasted too sweet for me.

After that we tour the Basilica. To climb up the church, we pay fifty pesos to the guard. The view from the top was beautiful. We can see the town, the bay and Mt. Maculot. 

Taal Basilica

View from the top

Mt Maculot from the top of the Basilica

We drive around for awhile to see the old houses around town then we went to Tagaytay for supper and coffee. It was a nice roadtrip. Until next festival

A view of Mt Maculot en route to Tagaytay

Pico de Loro

The month of March sucks. We cancelled a climb to Pico de Loro March 11 because we are supposed to fly to Taipei. Unfortunately, there’s this conflict between the Philippine government andTaiwan ROC which was not resolved until the 14^th. That sucks big time. I was really looking forward to coming back to that city since my last stay there lasted only 14days.

Anyways, we rescheduled the climb April 2^nd.  The weather was fine that day. We meet up in our RBC office 6AM and rode two cabs to fit the eight of us going to Baclaran. From there we got to ride a bus to Maragondon town in Cavite. The fare was 71pesos. From the bus station we hired tricycles to go to the town market so that we can buy provisions for the climb. After that we hired another set of tricycle to take us to the jump off point in DENR to register. The tricycle cost us a hefty price of 280pesos. A market vendor also offered 250 for the tricycle but unfortunately she got bullied by a mob of tricycle drivers. That was a little uncomfortable on our part. Of course we want to get the cheapest offer available but all the talking was overwhelming. We were forced to deal with the "real" drivers.

After paying the twenty pesos registration, we started the hike.  The early part of the trail was under foliage. It was pleasant to be walking under the shade. We eat our lunch in base camp 1. We bought green mangoes for 2bucks each. By and by, we saw other mountaineers getting themselves free mangoes by climbing them trees and putting the fruits in a big rice sack. They also made a campfire where they cook rice in a very large pot. Open fire: talk about leave no trace principles.

After eating lunch of corned tuna, we learned that the table we were using is for rent which worth 20pesos per head. Wow. We should have been informed prior. After paying, we get two liters of water each because we were informed that it will be the last source of water. It would be another four hours until the summit.

 The trail was difficult. You head up under trees then you traverse hills, walk on boulder-filled side of the mountain then walk in the open sunshine. Then do it again only the next it would be more steep.

We reach the camp site near the summit around 3pm. We pitched our tents and take some photos. We waited until 5:30 until we did the assault to the first summit. 

photo during the assault. from Takie's flickr page

It was worth it. The view from the top is breathtaking.

on top of the first summit. on the background is the parrot's beak (and an on-going photoshoot)

Dinner was prepared by Frank immediately after descent to the camp site. Pork sinigang is on the menu. Pork adobo and string beans will also be prepared for tomorrow’s breakfast and lunch. After dinner they drank a little (I don’t drink). It was Frank’s birthday the next day anyway. Lights out was very early at 11pm.

The next day, the group of teachers next to our camp was awake very early before 5am. They will climb the summit that morning. Lucky for us that we were also awake because we were able to see the Milky Way that dawn. It is very seldom that we see a lot of stars in the city, what more seeing these galactic clouds.

I wake them up around 7AM. The sun is up and we want to be early when we do the traverse to Nasugbu. Breakfast was of course delightful. Danggit, dried squid and adobong sitaw. We have to eat a lot because it will be uncertain what time we will eat lunch. We also need to budget water provisions because we also don’t know how long the trek will be. There were also no other groups that will go the same way as we do.

After we break camp, we head again to the summit to go to the other side of the mountain. We also climbed the other summit, the parrot’s beak which we didn’t really plan to climb the day before. Climbing that big rock is very dangerous. I was really terrified on the tricky part of that rock but it was worth it when I was on top.  

me on top of the second summit

This mountain would have been very lovely if not for all the vandalism it has to endure. I always ask myself throughout the hike why the hell someone would bring permanent markers when climbing a mountain.

on top of the parrot's beak. visible are all the scratched vandalism on the rock floor(they just have to eventhough they forgot to bring a permanent marker)

After that we head down the trail least taken. It was very steep. This trail is worse than the other way. It’s like going to bamboo-land then into a forest of trees then into grassland. After that we hear motorcycles. We are finally on climbing a side of mountain and into a road. We were in high spirits at that time. They hail this motorcycle guy who sells ice for 6pesos. It was too much but for people like us who badly needs water, it was and so far the best tasting frozen water ever.

this guy sold us the frozen water. he will also pass as a good barber with all the tall tales he told us

Going down the road, we found two tricycles. We rented them and asked them to bring us to the nearest beach. They brought us to Sta. Mercedes, Maragondon, Cavite. In this side we can see the Parrot’s beak-like peak from the mountain we just traversed. It is very far from where we are standing. Beaches of Nasugbu are also close by but the place was fine. We rented a place for 300pesos for four hours. We only stay there to eat lunch and tidy up a bit before going to the bus terminal. We also take a swim in the Manila Bay before sunset.hahaha.

Before 6pm we left the place, ride again on the rented tricycles. The journey to Nasugbu bus terminal was very frightening. We were going too fast in a dark road on uphill and zigzag roads. Another thing is that we have another guy in the roof of the sidecar. It adds up to the fear we are having with our existing phobia on riding fast tricycles.

Finally we reach this bus terminal near a Jollibee. During the ride, I am estimating how close we are from the terminal by using the km marker on the side of the road to a Jollibee (like this: Jollibee 4Km, then 3Km then so on..). that estimation was so freaking dead accurate.

The buses to Pasay cost about 150pesos. The trip was very long with the frustrating Metro Manila traffic. We arrived in the Pasay terminal about 10pm. We ate in a Chowking then part ways.

The whole adventure was awesome. The uploaded pictures in facebook draw lots of attention that people want to join in on the next climb. Too bad that our little crew is not that equipped to consider.Talk about funrun is so dead.

Mt. Daguldol

We were planning this climb since our last climb March last year. Talk about procrastination. It just pushed through since Emman is leaving for US on Feb12.

Funny that there was no new planning involved at all. Two weeks’ notice through email which included the old itinerary and that’s it. No pre climb meeting. And we’re off to Batangas.

It was raining really hard the night before which makes us hesitant to bring a camera.We did not bring any camera that we regret a little.

Call time was 5AM at the Araneta Cubao Terminal. Due to the strong rains to the night before. I was also even hesitant if I will still go or not.  I woke up at almost 5AM. I texted them to wait. Jasen and Irene was luckiliy still in the Condo. Irene was also thinking of not going due to the rains. They waited for me so that we can share a cab to cubao.

We meet up in 7Eleven Alimall to buy some last stuff and KFC for breakfast. We learned that the sole trip to San Juan was scheduled at 5AM. If only we were a little early.  We end up taking the bus to Lipa. From the toll gate, we took tricycles at fifty pesos each to the Shuttle terminal which will take us to San Juan Market. The shuttle fare was sixty pesos. We bought ingredients for adobo and sinigang and five kilos of rice in the market then we take the jeep to Barangay Hugom. The fare was forty pesos each.

We paid the registration fee of thirty pesos per climber and guide fee of 150. We ate our early lunch in a carinderia and we were off. Time was around 10:30.

We have to walk first through the beaches of Laiya. By that time, we were already joking that a camera would be great to brought, as the sceneries are already lovely. Too bad.

There are other groups of climbers, one with 50 memebers, one with 28. There were still others. We also learned that night that a group will do a night trek by 7pm. I think we saw them pass our camp near 11 pm(i did not care about the time, we were into talking about office related crap by that time). 

We were quite fast in our trek compared to our first time. We were able to overtake some climbers. We were walking as one group the whole time but we decided to split the group in two, four persons each and the first group to pitch tent as early as possible because rain clouds seems to be forming.

When we got to the camp site, one group has already settled. It was about 4:30PM. We managed to pitch our first tent in a very good place near the water source. We started cooking way before darkness fell. We were able to eat around 7:30. It is mainly because we only have one cook set. We need to cook four batches of rice for the eight of us. The sinigang was awesome. Great that Frank went to this climb. We now have a designated cook. Socials came after as the Adobo is also being cooked for lunch the next day. One batch of rice is also cooked for breakfast. The plan was to wake up 4AM for summit assault. Our lights out was 12MN.

picture in the summit taken using my camera phone

6AM, we woke up. Too much for the climb plan. We ate our breakfast of danggit and noodles and prepared to go down the mountain. We were all ready for descent but the group next to us told us that the summit is just 10 minutes away. We were already there so we went. Thanks to them that we have a group photo even though we did not bring a camera. We were just tagged on Facebook. Climbers are really cool. The summit is also awesome. Just as described in pinoymountaineer, a golf course-like terrain on top of a mountain.

tagged photo on facebook by co-climber Sir Jam Jireh Cruz

The descent was as always tricky. My body aches the next morning is mainly due to the strains from going down the mountain. I bought a coconut midway the trek as refreshment. It costs fifteen pesos. I am not keen on eating halo-halo during the hike. Before we reach the beach we ate lunch. The Adobo was awesome as we expected.  After lunch we stopped by a place near the beach to take a shower. They took a dip and wash up after. For me, I just sleep the whole afternoon. It was very satisfying.

What sucks is how we have to go back to manila. The jeepney rental was 1500 pesos to Lipa. There were no trips of PUJs from Hugom to San Juan by that time so the jeepney rental to Lipa or tricycles to San Juan are the only choices left.

When we got to the Bus Terrminal, we still have time to eat dinner. We eat tapsilog in the nearby carinderia. It was only forty-five pesos. Very cheap compared to our food in the office.

We all alight in Ortigas where we part ways and go back to reality.