July 28. The better part of the last two days were spent traveling or getting ready to travel. First we traveled back to Taiwan, spent the night there. Heather stayed at her house, and I stayed with her neighbors again. I managed to get a good bit of laundry done, which was a good thing considering that I was now running a little low. The next day was spent sleeping is, repacking our bags and catching a taxi to airport. We then traveled from the Taiwan airport to the Manila airport.

Deboarding the aircraft we wound our way through the Manila airport till we found the passenger waiting area. The waiting area was a bit peculiar if you’re not accustomed to waiting areas being outside, or waiting in a line according to your last name to be picked up. Fortunately we didn’t have to wait that long, Heather’s friend Wendy along with a few other miscellaneous friends had come down to pick us up in their car. And being as they didn’t often have the opportunity to go grocery shopping in manila, it being a multiple hour ordeal to travel there for them. They had combined trips and gone grocery shopping before they picked us up. This would not even be a note of minor concern had it not been for the fact that we had luggage, and the groceries were occupying the entire trunk. Compound this with the fact that my suitcase is one of the pre 50Lb airline limit suitcases and we had to do some major shifting around of the cars contents. Suffice it to say we all had bags at our feet. Everything fit though and we were on our way to Wendy’s parent’s house.

Once there we found that we weren’t the only guests being housed by the Guptill’s. Dwayne one of the friends who had come to pick us up was also staying there. And also a wonderful Pilipino lady whose name I don’t quite recall but seem to be impressed that it was Jennifer. All together the Guptill’s have a rather full house with four guests plus a daughter. Peggy Guptill prepared a wonderful diner for us, and little else happened that evening.

29th of July was a Saturday and a Sabbath, so we started the day off with breakfast and then a short walk to church. The Guptill’s live on a SDA college campus and thus most everything you could really need is fairly close by including the church. The church though obviously used for a church was very reminiscent of a gym, most likely because of the flat concrete floor and rows upon rows of plastic chairs. To the average American church goer the standards were probably well below what they would find to be acceptable. Personally I enjoyed the birds flitting about and chirping during the sermon and found the breeze coming through the open windows to be very pleasant. After the morning church service we headed over to another SDA campus not too far a way called 1000 Missionary Movement. There we were able to catch the early afternoon service, and was summarily invited to stay for potluck.

After the potluck and a ferocious but brief thunderstorm we went back to the Guptill’s  home to take it easy and socialize for a bit. During some part of our discussions it was mentioned that we could go see Taal Volcano. This sounded like a splendid idea to Heather and myself. It was a short drive to get to the volcano, and indeed the volcano had been so urbanized that there were roads up to the top of it and even going down into the volcano.  All along the roads were houses of varying degrees of quality and ramshackledness. Descending into the volcano we came to a spot on the road that looked as good as any or better stopped to get and look around. We took a few pictures and looked about a bit and then thought twice about the fact that we were parked in the middle of the road and decided that we should head back up the volcano to find a better spot.

Thus we did and as it turned out the spot we found was a small SDA church with a flat concrete roof that was perfect for walking on. Now to get to the church we once again parked in the road but off to the side, and then walked down a short dirt path that led up to the back of the church. The angel of the volcano was such that the back of the church was nearly even with the trail, this making it a mere step from the trail to the church roof. From there we were able to see a quite impressive vista though it was quite hard in the fading light to ascertain just where one expanse of volcano began and another ended. Taal Volcano is kind of unique in that inside Taal volcano is Taal Lake, in Taal Lake is an island called Volcano Island, within Volcano Island is another lake called Crater Lake, and Within Crater Lake is another island called Vulcan Point. I didn’t quite know all that when I visited it but knowing it now makes it all the more interesting. It also makes me wish that I had had more time to explore it.

The next day 29 July we had much fewer things planed to do but much more distance to go to get to it. Our destination was Pagsanjan Fall. To get to the falls, first we had to travel several roads to get to Laguna. Then we had to find a place to park the car which would rent boats and boatmen to go with them. Then we had to travel up the Cavinti river via the boats to get to the falls. The trip to Laguna went pretty well, we all piled in a car and drove to a small boat rental place. There we rented two boats, one for Dwayne and myself, and another Wendy, Heather and Jennifer. The trip up the river was interesting, but perhaps a bit over commercialized. On the one hand that is a good thing, as in order for us to get up the river all we had to do was sit in the boats, while the boatmen, paddled, pushed, pulled, ran alongside, lifted, and occasionally carried the boats. This made getting up the river rather easy, on the other hand it also made the river so crowded with tourist that at some points we actually had traffic jams with the boats.

Traffic jams aside the river is rather peaceful and beautiful. At the start of the trip upriver, the river is slow moving, shallow and wide, surrounded mostly by hilly to flat land. As you move further up the river you enter a gorge with nearly vertical cliffs covered in a patchwork of bare rock, mosses, ferns, and other tropical vegetation. As you make your way up river you go through a series of 14 “rapids” where the boatmen must get out of the boat. The front boatman guides the front of the boat up the river dodging rocks and boulders, while the rear boatman mostly just pushes you upstream. Midway up the river you come to rest area. here the boatmen take a rest, and a few open air shops attempt to sell you trinkets, and food or drink. The boatmen are also hoping that you will buy them something to eat or drink as well thus profiting both them and the shop owners. Now even though I am calling the shops “shops” don’t make the mistake of thinking that they are some type of building. The “shops” are more of a large outcropping of rock in a widened area of the river covered by a large patchwork of canvas and plastic tarps supported by a rickety frame of bamboo polls. Under this canvas several people are selling drinks, cooking anything and everything, and doing their best to sell it to anyone who will buy it.

After much pushing and pulling of the boatmen you make it to the Falls where you are rewarded with a very picturesque scene of a beautiful waterfall, with lots and lots of tourist swarming it. As we were to find out in short order, though it be picturesque your not allowed to dive in and take a swim in the wonderful green pool of water. At the opposite end of the pool of water, from the falls they have a bamboo raft. And if you want to get in the water or get close to the falls you have to pay a fee to ride the raft across the pool. Well being as we had come this far it only made sense that we should pay our fee to ride the raft. The rafts were not of particularly great construction, nor the most desirable flotation device as they tended to sink below the weight of the passengers. This was not big deal though, as the men pulling the raft across the pool pulled you directly under the waterfall.