Tagaytay and the American Cowboy

Yesterday the family and I, all 10 of us (when you travel to the Philippines you can expect to have an entourage), traveled 56 kilometers to Tagaytay City to see the famous Taal Lake volcano. The huge lake is dotted in the middle with several large islands of which one is a dormant and once cinder cone-shaped volcano. Situated next to the dormant volcano is an active, though inactive at the moment, volcano. And inside of that active volcano is another lake. So there is a lake inside a volcano inside of a lake. Neat huh? Well if you want to see that lake you have to pay for a boat ride to the shore of the volcano and then pay to ride a horse up the side of the volcano. Neat huh? Well that all depends. Ever heard of a saddle sore? Ever had one? Guess who has now?


A couple more views of the dormant Taal Lake volcano.



Half of our crew made the boat ride over to the shore of the volcano.


From there four of us mounted horses for the 15 minute ride to the rim of the active Taal Lake volcano. The lad at the left of the photo is my horse driver Bryan. I can't remember what the horse's name was but that's fine since it seemed to hate me anyway. The horses are accustomed to carrying small and mid-sized Asian tourists up the volcano and not 190-pound Americans, so in a way I understood. Also my driver, Bryan, seemed to hate the horse. I guess you could say it was a complete circle with poor ole me just along for the ride.


We make our way up the volcano. Straight up. No switchbacks here. Just straight up the side of the volcano. More saddle friction that way. More fun for all.


Yeeeee Haaawww! Yeah I know, the staw hat looks great on me. Compliments my red hair and freckles and all.


Alona reaches the top of the volcano.


Miss Sahar reaches the top of the volcano as well. She got to ride a white horse with a pink saddle. She said her horse liked her and kept turning its head back and smiling at her during the trip. How cute huh? Guess who also got a saddle sore?


Payoff. The view looking down from the rim of the volcano at the lake within the volcano within Taal Lake. This really was a great experiece. The view at the top was something to behold.


The family photo. The lad pictured with Alona and Sahar is Kevin, one of my many nephews. I didn't know about him until this trip. He's a good kid. Very respectful and ready to do whatever is asked of him by his family. He's never done anything like what we did yesterday, so I was glad to have him along for the experience.


My experience yesterday at Tagaytay City and Taal Lake was really neat. I really enjoyed myself despite the pain I feel when I sit down today. I guess the only lasting negative experience is knowing that we were gouged on the price of pretty much everything we did during our Taal Lake experience. The fact that I'm a white-skinned guy from the United States guaranteed we payed a premium for the fun things we did. Oh well, it could have been worse. I could've had to ride the beast above up the side of the volcano. Yikes!