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Taal Volcano July 10th, 2013

Taal Volcano is considered the smallest volcano in the world, at the same time it is one of the most dangerous. It has more than 30 recorded eruptions, the largest of which occurred in 1911. Now the volcano is dormant, but from time to time it shows signs of increasing activity since 1991 and therefore is constantly under the supervision of volcanologists and seismologists.

This is the second active, after Mayon (the largest in the country) volcano in the Philippines. It is interesting that the volcano is located in the center of Taal Lake, on the so-called volcanic island, in the center of which, after the last eruption, a lake also formed. Here, in the photo, you can see the crater of an extinct volcano, the locals call it Old Volcano. The crater we need is a little to the left, the boat just returns from there.

To get to the volcano, you need to get by bus or jeepney to the province of Batangas, in the south of the island of Luzon. The nearest town where you can hire a boat to cross Lake Taal is the village of Tagaytay.

By the way, the locals do not understand the name "Taal", they make big eyes! They pronounce TAAL (no soft sign). I was faced with the fact that they did not understand me when I tried to find out how best to get there, only then I realized what was the matter.

In addition to the fact that you need to find a boat (which is not difficult at all), they will also ask you to register in the magazine, and they will also try to impose a guide on you, without which they supposedly cannot do without. Actually, you don't need a guide. Having landed on the shore, you need to go to the right along the path through the village. There is only one way to get lost.

Despite the fact that since the 90s it has been strictly forbidden to settle and build dwellings here, the volcanic island is full of people. People literally live on a powder keg that is about to explode. During the last eruption, more than 1300 people died, and all life in the district died out within a radius of 10 km. However, these people have nowhere to go, they have always lived here.

We still took the guide, because we didn’t know how it would be there, which we soon regretted. He asked the boatman to drop us off at the farthest end of the volcanic island, after which we walked through the village for half an hour, although this could have been avoided by disembarking closer to the start of the climb. We were immediately followed by a dozen local uncles on horseback, waiting for us to get tired in order to offer our services. In general, all tourists climb the volcano exclusively on horseback, and only we decided to walk on foot.

It grows not what you thought :) This is a root crop from which bread is made, I forgot what it is called.

As you ascend, beautiful views begin to open up.

From various cracks, hot poisonous gases make their way to the surface, it smells of sulfur.

This suggests that the volcano is gradually waking up.

The ascent takes about an hour at a leisurely pace. If it were not for the terrifying heat and numerous stops to sit in the shade, you can walk to the volcanic lake in 40 minutes.

Before climbing, you need to stock up on water, from above it is sold 5 times more expensive. But coconut and water are the same price.

Without jump-photo anywhere.

The lake can be viewed from a different angle. Someone tried to write "Vasya was here."

At one end, the water is hot, even boiling a little, and sulfur remains on the shore. On the other hand, the water is cold, as it says smooth surface water.

Beauty here, of course, oh-oh-oh! By the way, this is our first volcano we climbed!

This is a master of spoiling the frame)))

And these are our unfortunate guides, as a result, I knew more about the volcano itself than they did. We agreed with one, then the second one came from somewhere, for the company.

We ran down in 15 minutes, our boatman invited us to the house of his relatives to drink some water. A trifle, but nice.

Mistress of the house.

Simple interior, nothing more.

We say goodbye and get on the boat. From the pier, our path leads to Batangas, where we need to take an overnight ferry to Caticlan, the port from where we can take a boat to Boracay!

Not all of us sit in stuffy and dirty Manila. And so we decided to go to the Philippine province, where it is clean, calm and comfortable, and not just somewhere in nature, but on the smallest active volcano in the world. It is called Taal, is located in the middle of a huge fresh lake Taal, and is located 50 km. from Manila. The journey takes approximately 2 hours. We traveled by car, but also from Manila to Tagaytay, there is a regular bus from the Pasay area. Tagaytaya is a village on the shore of a large lake, from there boats and boats leave for the island-volcano. There are also buildings on the volcano island itself, people live, but it is completely unclear how they will be evacuated in the event of a sudden eruption. By the way, the two strongest eruptions of Taal were quite recent, in 1911 and 1965.