Trek to Taal Crater Lake

It was a journey to a (crater) lake in a volcano... in a lake... in a volcano. Ta-al!

Brief introduction: Taal Volcano is the smallest active volcano in the world. Its unexplained shape and location on an island within a lake within an island, makes it a unique geologic wonder, enthralling thousands of tourists and geologists yearly. (more information at http://www.taalvolcano.org/information.htm)

Most entertaining and exciting boat ride!

Early morning, from a permitted docking point at the shore of the Taal Lake, a sturdy motor boat big enough to sail eight people, including the boatman, took me a level closer to the X that marks the spot. By the way, if one is lucky enough, there is a special motor boat that exists at the docking point where I went to that offers free entertainment and booming musical background while sailing the calm heavy fresh waters of the lake. I got more than lucky enough, you see. It was one of the most fun and most exciting boat ride I'd ever had!

A few minutes to almost half an hour later, I reached the very foot of the volcano (within the lake I just sailed in). Some little communities of people have surprisingly, for me, settled there already and welcomed trekkers with plain civility. No grand pa-fiesta hooray!, nor any talking. Just a blank.. silent.. long stare at "foreigners" coming to land.

Anyway, moving on! The path of the trek is as easy to follow as walking a paved path in a park. Don't get me wrong though, the trek path isn't paved. The path is overlaid with black sand for fast recognition and swift instruction, I think. It's a prolonged period of flat terrain walk at the start of the trek. No climb or slide on steep slopes yet. Reaching the end of the first part of the trek though, there'll be this quite high climb to do and by the top, a magnificent and relieving sight of the crater lake would first show up. It assured me I was trekking the right thing when I first caught sight of it. Swear, it was breathtaking. 

View of the crater lake from atop

I was on top, off some height, right? So, of course, to get down to the crater lake for much closer proximity, I made my descent to the crater of the volcano. This descent shall be fun. I suppose that if I had actually pushed myself to just go slide down one of quite a number of descending slopes back there, than had descended like a person slowly going down a contorted-ly arranged set of steps of a staircase, I would have had more fun and more adrenaline excreted. But it's fine. The manner I did it was still fun enough.

So, okay. Then the crater lake... The crater lake, I tell you, is a beauty! It's a beauty to behold. I'd just let some of the photos that I took of the crater lake from its shore convince you:

Green grass and white cows

I grabbed the two club sandwiches I brought to eat. That's my lunch, plus a 5-gallon supply of distilled water to rehydrate me from time to time. I took my good time there quite seriously; took some rest and some quiet time to myself. 

Also, I did not miss to take home a bit (a rugged Obsidian) of the crater lake for myself on my way "out", or on my back to the foot of the volcano. I took this different path back, passing a plain of grazing white cows and lava rocks, for more adventure. I was just hoping to not get real lost the whole time, and get trapped in the island volcano. I can't take being an actual Survivor, that's just not for a television show, trapped somewhere.

I got home so satisfied with the adventure and the experience. You can check out more of the photos of the trek to the crater lake here.