Celebrating my 27th @ Lake Pandin San Pablo, Laguna

I'm just simple..even small things became meanigful to me. Why am I saying this?? Well beacuse its my birthday and its my turn.. Yebahh!

Well ofcourse I'll be spending it with my special someone. Before my birthday he asked me where I wanted to go and since its just one day trip due to conflict of our schedules we need to be in somewhere near Manila. He asked me to think of any place but he suggested Laguna so its for me to decide where exactly it'll be in Laguna. I try to find a place and things that we can do
 there and I want it to be something different this time.

Ive read something about San Pablo,Laguna.. City of Seven Lakes. It represents the seven lakes of San Pablo: Lake Palakpakin , Lake Sampaloc, Lake Bunot, Lake Mojicap, Lake Claibato and the twin Lakes Yambo and Pandin which will be our next destination.

                          

In these Lake (Pandin and Yambo) you can go rafting, you can go swimming and you can also enjoy the food served by the natives living there. I saw the price and its so affordable!

Our starting point is from Antipolo and I'm familiar w/ the route since we passed through it a lot of times.
                                                  


While enjoying the overlooking sceneries I didnt notice that we are already in Laguna and it was just so fast.Some of Ron's relatives were from Laguna and Dada his father grew up in Siniloan so he is also familiar w/ the place but haven't been to the place where we will go. San Pablo is located at the southern portion of Laguna Province.

First stop over... The Big tube that Ron used to describe whenever we talk about Laguna. It was a big tube that you can see on the mountain and it just looks like a thin line from afar but if you came near and see it in person its really big. This tube creates electricity from the water current of Caliraya Lake down to the plant. We stopped and we asked permission to the guard to take picture but as all security guards favorite line "Its not allowed" but he's not  aware that I already took picture of it haha :-P

 

Another side trip we did is on Caliraya Lake in Cavinti, Laguna. We go up and took some pictures then we go down again and proceed..

Caliraya Lake

 

In Nagcarlan, we saw another landmark w/c is the underground cemetery. Its really nice if you'll use it as a subject for photography. Unfortunately we were unable to get inside since its close so we just took a picture of it from the view outside the gate.
                  

 

We've reached San Pablo at almost 1pm.  We saw a signage going to Bato- bato falls but the way going in seems too rough so I told him not to proceed and just go straight to what we are looking for.

On the road we also saw other signs going to Lake Mojicap and other lakes.. a few kilometers we already saw sign pointing its way to Lake Pandin and Yambo.  Its so off road not knowing that we can leave the motorcycle on the parking lot outside and you can just ask someone to watch over it but we didn't even saw that parking lot but that's ok atleast we didn't took a long walk.

After that I already saw the Pandin Lake. Its just a small lake with lots of balsa. Lake Pandin's residences were bussy doing their chores but when they've notice us they immediately approach and welcome us.

 

Monkey named Budoy is also an attraction.. I gave him banana:-)

 

 

They asked me if we were scheduled or if we texted them for reservation and we didn't. But they said its fine however all food they've used to prepare and serve for the guests may not be complete since we didnt call in for reservation and we were not even aware that we need to.

What we had in the table were fern salad which became my favorite starting that day,the small shrimps w/c is very delicious. I even have mais con yelo and banana but the grilled tilapia and buko juice is not there but they provided water and extra salted eggs and tomatoes..

Look at me.. I'm sooo happy :-)

Since we are on the road for 8 hrs we are so hungry so what do you expect! hahaha!

Aftermath.... 

The food is really delicious. It's very Pinoy. I even find the fern salad so weird but when I tasted it I never stop eating and Ron have same reactions too.. All for 800php inclusive of rafting but I find it expensive since I've read that it's like 180 php only per head but they said since we are only two its considered as special rate so its a bit higher .

 The ambiance is so peaceful and very very full of nature. You can hear different sound of birds echoing all over the lake.

 

 

The water is pristine you can jump and swim but you need to use a life vest since its like 100+ meter below sea level so for your own safety you need to wear life vest.

It just became a bit boring w/ the two person who is pulling the balsa for us..they are kinda quiet but they are nice its just that they not so entertaining.

                

And unfortunately its raining but not so hard..we need to still stay inside the balsa...



When we are on the other side of the lake there's a short trekking going its way for you to view Lake Yambo and we did! We only took picture and a short video while taking a walk to Lake Yambo.


View from the other side of the Lake...

 

 

 

 

 

 OUR RAFT...

Overall it was a very nice experience.The food, the travel and the place. First time rafting while eating delicious food. The ambiance is very relaxing however what I'm really concern about is our traveling time since its been 8 hours and we have only stayed in Lake Pandin for like 2 hours so its really kinda tiring...

 

Going Home..Its almost dark just like my boyfriend haha.. :-) #bully

SO FAR..THIS IS MY FAVORITE.. Not knowing that I would really enjoy Laguna..If you have plans its really nice for family outing and if you want to get closer to nature there's a lot in Laguna: Lake,mountains,cave,falls...name it! There's a lot of things you can do there and its just near Manila you can have a short but great escape.. DEFINITELY GOING BACK I'm gonna miss their fern salad for sure!!

Happy birthday to me :-)

Unexpected Trail!! Camp Sinai (Pintong Bukawe San Mateo, Rizal)

 

It all started when I saw a big picture of a big 10 Commandments of God on facebook from one of my friends (Elezer Orobia) w/c looks interesting. Of course I asked where is it located and I luckily got a reply from him right away. I was actually excited to inform it to Ron (my boyfriend) because I want go there specially when I found out that its just w/in San Mateo, Rizal. Knowing Ron, when I usually tell him that I wanna go to a certain place I always get a "yes" from him :-D (big smile for me).

 

 



This is the subject



It was Sunday morning, I came from my saturday shift (I'm working on graveyard) Me and Ron were actually having a small talk while sharing breakfast together. We are browsing the web together and I mentioned about the place until it led us checking the map of the said place "Pintong Bukawe". Some of the routes seems to be familiar to us but not all. Well that's actually how he always wanted it to be. He always just look at the map w/o the whole idea of  how to really get there and just discover the right way real time and I think thats also when the roadtrip gets exciting for both of us specially for him.  Now after my "parinig" that I wanna go there, he finally say "lets go!".. So... I was successful!! hehe



This is Ron getting ready and checking the map

We start hitting the road around 9am and he decided to take the route going to AFP housing. From there, our plan is to just ask the tricycle drivers  on which road we should take to reach it.We asked the manong driver if we can get there using our motorcycle and he says we can because tricycles can go there too. So I was now full hearted that we can get there because I initially think that the road may not be accessible for motorcycle since Elezer is a cyclist.

Well, what I'm thinking is actually true..We were both surprised of the kind of trail we are going to pass through. It's actually a trail for bicycles or motocross. There's a lot of cyclist passing through!!..But we still continue since we are already there but of course we should be more careful.. 

OFF ROAD!!

After that we saw a first stop over. There are stores and some guys are resting too who used motocross and bicycle. So we stopped over there... Yosi break and get some drinks since its already sunny and a bit hot and we are also a bit in doubt if we are still going to proceed....

Stop Over Spot

View from the stop over

Small Butterfly

Now we are in the state of deciding if are we still going to continue or not but manong (a resident there) says yes we can because at the middle of the trail there's already a concrete road going to pintong bukawe so we decided to still continue. Tigas lng ng ulo talaga haha!!

After that the road gets more difficult and challenging... some are even wet and muddy..

 

Fortunately, there's another group that we saw riding motorcycles too. They are four motorcylcles. They are also trying topass through the road but we have different destinations.. they said they are going to a tree planting project. But Ron told me that if those groups was not there w/ us he might have go back.That's why I kept on saying sorry since I am the mastermind but we are not fighting ha! hehe 

  

Ron's Feet dipped into the mud :-P

But anyways,on the positive side, the view on the trail is so full of nature.. there's a lot of pine trees, mountains, and tall trees that I was not able to capture w/ our camera since the road is rough and the shots came out blurred.

At last we finally get to the concerete road. This is the road that manong was talking about..

 

 

Oh whoaow! that's really a tough one!! We didn't expect that! Well..forget about it because we are already on a smooth concrete road and the fact that we are getting closer to our destination is really something I'm more excited of! 

Finally we've seen group of people on the street. Those were employees or volunteers of DENR for the tree planting project. This is were the other 4 motorcycles are going to.

We stopped over again for a bit and there's this map that show the trail that we've passed through and see that we are now really close to the Banal na Higanteng Crus (w/c where the two big tables of stone is located)

 

So after a short rest we continue and asked some residence there where is the way to pintong bukawe but their faces seems to be puzzled and don't know what we are asking for. Then a young lady point us to a street and said a certain name of the place w/c I can't remember anymore. So we are still in doubt but still we decide to took that street that was pointed out to us and finally we saw this sign w/c is a confirmation that yes! we are now in Camp Sinai Pintong Bukawe :)

 

But you still have to take a short walk to a steep road to get to the big tables of stone so we have to leave Beatchay down there..

Beatchay says "I'm so dirty" LOL :-P

First View on top...

 

Then a few more steps.....

AND AT LAST!!.. THERE IT IS!  And it really huge men!!!

A short trivia: God wrote The Ten Commandments of God in Mount Sinai w/c isoriginally located in Egypt. He wrote it using only his fingers within 40 days and 40 nights no food or water together with Moses

The moment that I saw it... I said : "Ang hirap mo palang puntahan.. simula ngayon talagang susundin na kita" :-)

Side Shot

The view is also captivating.. You'll feel the fresh air and its very relaxing.. this is the viewing deck and you can sit for a while and you'll also see mountains on here... This is infront of the big two tables of stone..

So green So nature :-)

Infront of the Giant Table of Stones

 

Ron's Simangot Face.. I know he's tired hehe









Viewing Deck

So since we've worked hard for this.. we don't wanna missed the chance of taking pictures.. OF COURSE!!

Me :-)





Ron :-)



Me looking at the view

Us.. taken by manong mabait hehe

I thought we wont have pictures together since we don't bring tripod but luckily one of 4 guys sitting on the viewing deck and also about to leave initially approach us if we want him to took picture of us then of course we says Yes :) he even took multiple shots of us but this is the one I chose to post. He even said  "May mga sweetheart din kme kaya naiintindihan ko yan hindi lng namin kasama kaya mga barako kame ngayon"..  Thank you  manong you're so bait hehe.



US TOGETHER we made it safely yehey!!!

After that, we go down and there's actually a store there where in you can buy food and drinks. At that day their special menu was barbecue but they don't sell cigarettes so if you're smoking better bring your own. We sat for a while take a rest and drink soda. We also talked about the road to pass through going home w/c will be in Cogeo of course we don't wanna go back to the same road we took!



Small Nipa

Other group that is also there that day





The Store

I really requested a shot here before going home..two thumbs up for my haggardness and for the experience hehe :-)

But since its still a big question for us on where is the road going to Marikina that the outcome will be on Timberland Heights, we decide to still try that route because its shorter but when we get there, the area was a private property,gate was closed and there's a security guard. He told us that we cant get in and aside from that he said that the road is too rough and our motorcycle may not survive. He mentioned about the C6 route but its not yet done so there's really no other way but go back and take the Cogeo route.

Everything went smooth going home.. we should have took that route going there w/o passing thru those off road trails w/c is supposedly for bicycles/motocross but those tough roads made our experience unique and unforgettable again.. We arrive like 1:30 pm at home. :) and I still have shift later (goodluck to me) So tired.. but we unlock one place again just nearby Marikina.

By the way.. I lost my favorite shades while we are on the road :( so sad but ron promised me that he'll buy me a new one YEHEY!!