merry christmas!

amidst the flurry of christmas shopping and gift-giving,
tear-your-hair-out traffic snarls 'round malls and
last-minute noche buena plannings,

let us not forget the reason for this season. :-)




from me and my blog to you, i wish all of you blogfriends a very merry and blessed christmas. :)

mt. pinatubo adventure pt. 2

date: 21 novembre 2009
who: h peeps and friends (14 people grand total)
battle plan:
2am: meet @ mcdonald's el pueblo; wait for the van that will pick us up.
3am: leave for capas, tarlac
5.30am: arrive in capas.
7-ish: get on those 4x4s and start the ride!

...

i have already lost track of time from the time we all boarded those 4x4s until the end of the trip. ;-)

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you must have watched the vids in my previous posts already, so here i introduce us four ladies making all that racket. ;-) the three guys up in front (driver, tour guide and another friend R) were silent for the most part. haha. and yes, we were fortunate enough to be in the lead 4x4 (there were three in all to accommodate 14 people) so dust wasn't really a problem for us. thanks to friend S who took this pic.

the ideal 4x4! we were sitting at first but i noticed the tarp can be moved, so we asked the driver if we could stop and take the tarp off so we could stand. so from that time on, the four of us were standing the whole time. :)

noisy girls at the back! quiet guys in front!

as i've mentioned in my previous post, our group chose the newer option of taking the skyway, which took us on a longer 4x4 ride to the jump-off point which is about an hour or so depending on how many stops we made for foto ops. here are some pics i took of the amazing views along the 4x4 route:

blue, blue sky. the perfect weather for travelling.

the two other 4x4s

amazing lahar walls carved by the elements.

the hills are aliiiiive... again! it's amazing to see that almost two decades after the devastation wrought by the mt. pinatubo eruption in 1991, lots and lots of green have sprouted again.

even the aetas have come back to the place they have called their home for years.

sulfur and shadow.

the trek to the crater took all of us roughly 30 minutes, what with more foto ops and all. for someone without exercise for the longest time, except in preparation for this trip, this crazy traveler made it to the crater on two somewhat unsteady legs instead of all fours as she thought. all wheeziness was gone, btw, as she took in the magnificent view after the trek.

igneous rocks of different shapes, colours and sizes

large volcanic rock

tranquilité

...dot.com. ;-)

during the trek, in my concentration to balance and not slip on the stones, i almost forgot to take a vid until the last part. good thing i remembered to take out my phone to take this last video amidst the hazy vision and lack of oxygen. hey, that's a joke, ha? haha.

all righty peeps, just hit play!

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the whole package cost us P2,250 which included a roundtrip van transfers, 4x4, a local tour guide, travel insurance, conservation and skyway toll fees, and even an id with a lanyard. we didn't get the snack option offered; instead, all of us feasted on M's scrumptious pork and chicken adobo with egg. yumyumyum! :D

another nice thing about this trip is the fact that it's during the off-peak season. the place is much calmer.

if you're planning to visit mt. pinatubo, swing by travel factor's website.