Philippines - Mount Pinatubo

Our first official day on vacation! We'll spend a couple days in Manila followed by Palawan Philippines and then it's off to Langkawi & Kuala Lumpur in Malaysia.

The first day of our adventures was actually on the plane right out here, where I remembered how much I love traveling with my hubby. After all my previous flights were in the sardine can Chinese economy class, I loved being treated to the first class treatment with Business Class lounge escorts and Octianne lotions in the airplane bathroom. Oh, I love traveling like a consultant! Unfortunately, Matt is going to have a rude awakening for the rest of the trip... which I planned. :)

Anyways, we arrived late Saturday night into Manila and then woke up at 3am to catch a taxi to meet our tour at the local McD's at 4am. (Side note: McD's transfers from the regular burger menu to the breakfast menu at 4am. If you order at chichen nuggets 3:55am only for them to change the boards in 5 mins, you will need to get back in line for a delicious egg mcmuffin.) Anyways, after the check-in they split you into groups of 10 for the 2 hr van ride (where everyone slept). Then we hopped out of the van a little droppy eyed around 6:15am. But even if you were tired, don't worry because then you hop on to a harrowingly bumpy 4x4 ride for about 80minutes? 

We're headed for the little gap about 1/3 from the left

Our ride!

The Aeta children wave goodbye

There were some river obstacles on the journey.

Lastly, it's a 3hour hike up through the crevice of the mountains, where you have alocal guide to help you through the streams. The water isn't that deep, but there is a current, so it's nice to have him there. He also pointed out a couple things along the way. For example, there is a village up in the volcano and we saw some of the families & kids living in the hills and coming down to the stream to wash their clothes. Later, our leader told us a little more about these people. The Aeta people are a nomadic indigenous people to the Philippines living throughout the mountains in Luzon and thought to be the earliest inhabitants of the Philippines. (Most closely related to the Aborigines in Australia.) Apparently, the Spaniards attempted to settle them during their time of rule in the Philippines but the Spanish attempts failed and the Aetas are now known for their strength in resistance to change.  

start of our trek

 Our local guide

King of the world.

This spot reminded me of the Lion King, where Simba is down in the valley... Anyone else?

 

Here you can see some of the local Aeta washing their clothes

After all of these interesting sights, we finally arrived at the crater of Mount Pinatubo! Gorgeous!!!!! The reward was well worth the trek! We accomplished a great deal by 10:30am! :)

Until 1991 Mt Pinatubo was a volcano in the Luzon province of the Philippines.

pre-eruption

In June of 1991 the volcano erupted into 24km hug of ash plumes. Apparently, no one died during the eruption as there were some clues to its coming and an evacuation even of the Aeta people was ordered. However, just a week later there was a typhoon in the same region that washed all of the ash onto the towns and covered thousands of homes and taking hundreds lives. 

eruption

While this was absolutely a tragedy of nature, because of these two events a large crater was created in the center of tr volcano where the peak used to be. As the strong rains fell during the rainy season the crater began to fill up more and more with no where for the water to escape. Eventually, it became so high there were fears it would overflow and again devastate the villages/towns below. They created a drainage system that allowed for the water to gradually escape and hence the river flowing down the mountain side. The lake in the crater is fully made up of rain water and the water changes color each week depending up the life cycle of the algae. Our particular day it was a dark aqua, but on other weeks it can be as blue as the tropic oceans or brown... like the Potomac?  

There are a couple locals selling water, but otherwise, this area is true to nature. We brought our lunch (which was our old chicken nuggets from said 4am McD's stop earlier. Turns out they don't keep so well.) Anyways, we loved it!!! We relaxed here for a little over an hour and soaked in some sun (too much sun for my feet) but then we headed back "the short way." Which really meant that the 4x4s could actually drive up that hour 3 hour hike we took and we rode the 4x4s back down. Haha. Luckily, the hike was part of the fun!

My JEEP/ 4x4 ad

back to Manila!