By far, this is the best place i visited this year. And it involved an entirely different skill: trekking and endurance training. The planning took a week. Considering the unpredictable weather, I spent more time looking at the Pagasa website than actually talking to the tour organizer. October isnt the ideal time to visit Mt Pinatubo but when the day came, the weather was perfect.
At 3am on October 9, my two buddies and I headed for the Pinatubo Spa Town in Capas, Tarlac, the takeoff point for the trek. The directions given to us were detailed, enabling us to reach the place at 5am. At 530am, we got on the 4x4 jeep. At first, the ride was smooth, but after 15 min, it turned bumpy. The jeep crossed an almost endless landscape of lahar, stone and streams.
After an hour, the jeep couldnt go any further sowe got off.Our guide, Mang Doming, told us that reaching the crater depended on how fast we walked. Fast meant brisk walking over rugged terrain, which he eagerly demonstrated to us. But we could hardly keep up with him. This being our first time to trek, we made a couple of stops just to catch our breath and rehydrate. So we opted for the leisurely walk, with chats and goofing around in between. First, we found ourselves in the middle of two towering lahar mountains. Even though the place looks deserted (desolate is more appropriate i think) , it looks calm and beautiful. Then came the water. The route to the crater simply involved following the river upstream. So we did just that, jumping from one stone to the next, keeping our heads down to make sure we got a clear view of the ground. A wrong step could mean a sprained ankle, a gaping wound, or aborting the trek altogether. Somehow the cold mountain water helped, soothing our feet and making the trip more bearable. As we went higher, the terrain got more difficult to navigate because the stones got bigger, and slippery, and there were areas where theres not much rock or shrub to hold on to.
After about 2hours of walking through rocks and streams, when we almost couldnt take any more walking, we reached a clearing, a dirt road going up the mountain. Finally, we reached the crater. Awesome is hardly the word to describe it. A beautiful place arising from a natural catastrophe. The place conjured up a feeling of tranquility, of inner peace, a certain top-of-the-world feeling of accomplishment. You could almost say God carved it himself during his free time.You should experience it to believe it.
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