Buntot Palos Falls/Pangil River

The Pangil river

I had only gone to one hike prior to this. I was expecting it to be quite easy. A quarter of the way through the first trail and it was clear that it was not gonna be that way, at least not for a beginner like me. We had two trails that day. The first involved climbing a mountain for about 3-4hours to get to the Buntot Palos falls or the “hidden falls” of Laguna. We had to go through mud, steep inclines , rocks, very slippery rocks and even more slippery rocks. The risk of dying seemed pretty real. I was quite convinced that some of us would not be able to make it to the destination uninjured or… alive. I was just hoping that I wouldn’t be one of them. I was also hoping that my camera would not be among the casualties. 

Resting and enjoying the view. If anyone's wondering why my entire lower leg is covered in mud, that's how deep my foot sank in some of the muddier portions of the trail

We traversed the Pangil river on the 2nd part of our trek. It was relatively easier. The risk of dying seemed to be lower. That was until we had a close encounter with a poisonous snake hanging from a branch. In the end though, we all survived. I was especially thankful that my camera survived 

Buntot Palos falls: To give you an idea of the scale of this photo, those small dots that you see beside the falls are people

There’s a certain satisfaction to be had in conquering something that your body and mind tell you is unconquerable.

Not only was this my first trek, it was also the first time that I went out of metro manila without the company of a friend or anyone familiar to me. To a slightly lesser degree, it was like the first time I drove alone or the first time that I went to a mall alone. it almost feels like a stage in growing up that I missed. 



This trip was organized by trailadventours. Fee was 1900Php inclusive of lunch and transportation. If you're interested in joining one of their trips, you may check out: www.trailadventours.com

Exotic food restaurant. They served us snake, stingray and adobong baboy. 

A poisonous snake hanging from a branch

Introduction

Hi I’m Alex.  If I had to enumerate everything about me, this would be a very long post so I’d just enumerate facts that wouldn’t put my target audience to sleep. I’m a photography enthusiast, a freethinker, happily single for almost half a year now, straight; I’m 25; I’ve been 25 for the past 5 years and will continue to be 25 until I no longer fancy myself as the Filipino incarnation of Peter Pan.

I fall under many different classifications of geek but for the sake of brevity, let’s just say that I was a very indoorsy geek until just recently., the complete opposite of Bear Grylls, the antithesis of Steve Erwin. My feet never touched soil or grass until I was an adult. I also didn’t see the sun very often.

 I’m a late bloomer of sorts. I was already in College when I first went to a mall unaccompanied. The first time that I went to Binondo, I felt like I was in a different country. And that was just a 20min train ride from my place. Embarrassingly, that was also just 3 years ago.

When I was ingradeschool (early 90’s), me and my family used to go to Matabungkay beach every summer. And then that stopped and I don’t remember travelling for leisure again until 2010 when a friend practically forced me to join 2 photography related trips. An act that I’m still very thankful for since it forced me out of my shell.

Those trips weren’t followed for more than a year. People have been asking me what made me decide to start travelling all of a sudden. I’m not really sure either but I suddenly felt like catching up to what I’ve missed. Maybe it early-onset mid life crisis. I’ve decided to make travelling a more frequent occurrence in my life, at least for the next few months. I created this blog to document my progress as well as to help those who want to get into budget travelling.  Since I believe that experiencing something without having a record of it is a waste, this will be a very photo heavy blog. My apologies to dial up users, if any of you still exist.

Join in me in my attempt to be a more outdoorsy geek. Try to suppress the urge to call me a wuss whenever my lack of outdoorsy skills become too apparent. 

Taal Volcano (My first hike)

It’s official. Jaywalker is an outdoorsy person now. He just went on two out of town trips within two weeks!

It had only been a week since I went to zambales when a friend invited me again to a trip to taal. The word “trekking” was mentioned but for some reason, images of steep, death-inducing inclines didn’t cross my mind. I wasn’t quite dressed for the occasion. Wearing slippers and shorts when climbing a volcano isn’t very ideal, apparently.

The trek started off easy enough and got progressively more challenging as we went on. Men on Horses followed behind us, hoping to extract money and, maybe, sexual gratification from stragglers. I didn’t intend to be one of their victims. So I tried to trek on, all the way to the top, driven by nothing but Manly fervor.

Do you risk life and limb by trekking all the way to the top or do you ride a horse and sacrifice your manly dignity. Not a very tough choice

Before I left, my father said that I was risking my life for a hobby. I disagreed of course. I didn’t think that there was risk involved at all. While I was on the steepest part of the climb, all I could think of was that his words had never rung more true.

Bloody but unbowed. I may have tripped a few times but my manly dignity remained intact. Pay no attention to the hat

My memory of events gets a bit muddy near the top. I was half delirious. Childhood dreams of riding on horseback flashed before me. I saw chuck Norris wearing a straw hat, riding on horseback…

After about 45mins, our reenactment of the bataan deathmarch came to a pause. We finally reached the peak. I bumped into a deranged man spouting unsubstantiated claims. He was ignored, as was appropriate.[/inside joke] I didn’t actually realize that we were climbing the actual volcano until I was at the top and saw the crater. Throughout the entire treck, i had very little knowledge of what we were doing. Someone mentioned that we'd be swimming, hence i brought shorts and slippers. It was either an innocent mistake or someone's idea of a joke.

me at the peak

the Taal crater

We didn't stay at the peak for long. We didn't even get to shoot the model who was so exhausted that she just slept. After a few minutes we had to go back down the same treacherous path again

The sand felt like sandpaper –hot sandpaper. The sun was scorching. The treck was more than an hour long. The trek was so taxing and so perilous that I felt about 30% manlier when we finally got down. My farmer’s tan also looks about 20% more awesome. I display it proudly. It’s physical proof that I’m more outdoorsy now.

My Farmer's tan, i display it proudly whenever the opportunity arises