The Philippines Day 3 (Part 1)

Day 1 and Day 2 were really cool, but my third and final day was the best day of them all. Early in the morning, we left Manila to head south to the Taal Volcano. This is a volcano that is situated in the middle of a lake. Thus the first part of the adventure is finding someone to hire to take their boat to the middle of the lake to get to the volcano. My driver, Pippo, who was the only person that kept me from getting ripped off throughout the whole day, found someone who "looked" reliable and that guy jumped into our car to take us to where his boat was. After travelling almost straight downhill in the car to get to the lake, we found his boat and we were off. The boat was basically a canoe with long bamboo sticks on each side (see the picture) with a motor in the back. It was a pretty windy day so we went up and down in the boat over the choppy waters. Pippo had never been on a boat before and is scared of the water, so needless to say he was clinging on for dear life as the boat was going up and down over the waves (and yes, the Philippines are a group of islands, so yes, Pippo who lives on an island is scared of the water…I know…but I've heard of weirder things in my life).

When we arrived, I had the option of riding a small horse up the volcano or actually trekking it myself, I decided on the latter and started walking. It was about 95degrees F outside with 80% humidity, so needless to say it was a "fun" walk up the volcano. It took about 1 hour to get to the top with the last 100 feet being steps climbing up the remaining part of the volcano…steps at the end of climbing a volcano are not a good idea if you were wondering. Around the crater of the volcano are guys who sell different drinks and food and the second that I made it to the top there was a guy popped the top of a glass bottle of Mountain Dew. Now let me tell you, I am not the biggest fan of Mountain Dew, but after climbing up hill for an hour in 95degrees, I looked over at the bottle (with sweat in my eyes), saw cold mist escaping out of the open top and saw the beads of water careening down the sides, I don't think my mind was fully functioning yet, but I just walked over to the guy, threw some money (an amount I am still not sure of to this day) and proceeded to down the Mountain Dew. I know that is not the best way to hydrate yourself, but I can honestly say, it was the best drink I have ever had in my life. Whether it was the right thing to drink or not, it hit the spot (to the point that you can even look at the picture that I took of it below).

After downing the Mountain Dew, I finally turned around to look into the crater of the volcano. The crater has a lake inside of it with another little island on it called Vulcan Point. A stupid fact that I got from Wikipedia, but thought I could share with you all is that Vulcan point "is the world's largest island within a lake on an island within a lake on an island." Wow, I'm not even sure I understand that or who actually measured it to make sure that was indeed true.
Besides the Mountain Dew, the other highlight of making it to the top of the volcano was that you can pay to shoot bullets with pistols or a semi automatic weapon into the crater. While I was able to contain myself (after having the guy present the weapons to me), there were many a Taiwanese tourist that loved taking the gun and shooting it into the crater. By the way, if you didn't get it from above, this was absolutely amazing. Taking the boat to the volcano, climbing it, having an awesome Mountain Dew, all in all it was a great experience.