Trekking Taal

I have been to Tagaytay numerous times and have always admired the beauty of the Taal Volcano from afar. As the early morning sun rises & shines, you’ll see it sitting silently with the lake as its blanket. Just yesterday, a usual lazy Sunday turned into an adventurous one. My friends and I drove to Lipa, Batangas and decided to finally check out & trek the volcano.

From an area called Mataas na Kahoy, we hired a banca for P 2,000. It takes about 45 minutes to reach the volcano from Lipa (the usual & most common route is actually from Tagaytay). We got a young guide for P 500 & he had a small horse, or more like a donkey, together with him. Little did we know that we were actually going to walk on a horse trail going up to the look out point. Anyway it was not that bad, just a few horse shit along the way. The trek up the lookout point was fairly easy, about 30-40 minutes of walking. But from the lookout point going down the crater, that was a bit tricky. The soil was so slippery because of the small loose pebbles and if you’re not wearing proper hiking boots, you have to do it slowly or you might slide and injure yourself. It was a good (or should I say not so good) 20 minutes of trying not to slide down and wishing the wind would come visit and say hi. We were sweating like crazy as there was no breeze at all. When we reached the crater, we rested for 15 minutes before heading back up the lookout point. The water in the crater was too hot for a dip, you could barely swim in it. So we just ended up taking a few photos & chilled for a bit.

Trekking Taal is quick & fairly easy. A fun trip out of the city w family or friends. Just make sure to bring a lot of water (it can get really hot) and some cash. Yup, there’s a P 50 entrance fee and it’s P 50/drink on the look out point in case you want a cold soda or two.