The reason we came all the way to Talisay, a place in the middle of nowhere, was to visit the crater lake. This was the lake we had seen from the sky a couple of years ago when flying from Taipei to Denpasar (Bali). Where we are staying is situated on the banks of lake Taal which is a crater of a volcano. Inside lake Taal is an island with another crater lake inside it. We wanted to hike across the doughnut of land to see the second crater lake.
We hired a man called Michael to take us over on a boat and a beflipflopped 15 year old guide called Julius to take us up to the ridge where we could look down and see the lake. It was a very hot but very nice hike through a village, past various animals through the jungle until the path became steep and dusty. It was a short hike there, only 40 minutes, but very enjoyable. A sun shade had been built at the top which was a relief and it was a great place to sit and enjoy views of the green lake below.
On our return, we stopped and chatted to some villagers selling cold drinks from an esky. We asked if they had any coconut (after hiking through hot coconut palm forest for an hour, I really fancied some coconut juice. One of the village girls asked where we were from. I usually say Wales first, but less than half the time it gets a reaction. I end up saying “the UK”. Anyway, this girl had heard of Wales and in fact intends to go there for work:
“I used to work in Surrey innit, but it's too expensive. I heard Wales is cheaper to live”
It turned out Michelle had spent 2 years in Redhill, Surrey working in a nursing home and really liked it. She told us she missed the rain.
We finished our coconuts, said goodbye to Michelle and her family and went back to the place where we had left Michael and the boat.
It was a small deck area surrounded my a couple of basic huts on the lake and was called “Crater Lake Resort.” The place smelled of horse poo (there were a lot of tired old nags for hire). My concept of what makes a resort has really shifted since I got to the Philippines.
