THE MYOPIC WANDERER: THE BREATHTAKING BATULAO

Last May 2015, I conquered Pico de Loro (664+ MASL) and it just wasn't enough. So I invited my friends in this group I'm part of -- AYBM (Association of Young Boholanos in Manila). I asked them if they were willing to climb Mt. Batulao with me. I have been reading travel blogs about the mountain and the view is just so picturesque. Gladly, some of them agreed.

Meet Sir Chief, John, Louie, April (yours truly), Greg, Carlo, Dorothy and Will. This officially marks the day of the creation of the Young Boholano Explorers group.

This blog isn't really one of those superbly organized climbs. It turned out to be one of the funniest experiences I had with friends. Anyway, there's no harm in sharing that crazy day at Batulao where we all did our version of Twerk It Like Miley.

JUNE 27, 2015 - 5:30 AM
- original meet up time at Market Market

JUNE 27, 2015 - 9:30 AM
- actual meet up at Taguig

Talk about Filipino time!

From the city, we left for Nasugbu, Batangas at around 9:45 AM. We had two private vehicles on convoy to Batangas. We took SLEX and made an exit at Greenfield, and then straight to Tagaytay. We had all the information we needed as per the Pinoy Mountaineer website.

Read more about Mt. Batulao here:
PINOYMOUNTAINEER.COM | Mt. Batulao (811+)

Equipped with the WAZE app on Will's phone, we made our way to EVERCREST Golf Course in Nasugbu. In around an hour and a half, we reached the Nasugbu welcome sign and tried to locate the jump-off. In the next hour, we realized we were lost. We already made our way near Calatagan! We made our way back to Nasugbu and carefully checked on our location through Waze and Google Maps. Finally, we arrived around noon at HILLCREST Golf Course and saw the sign leading to the Mt. Batulao jump-off.

Ok, so EVERCREST is HILLCREST, or is it not?

We parked our cars in one of those houses along the road which leads to the trail. The lady asked for P100 per car for parking fee for the whole day. We also decided to get one of those teenager trail guides. As per the blogs I read, they only ask for P300. Well for that day, we were asked for P400. Two tricycles took us to the jump-off point for P30 per head. We then registered with no payment asked.

We chose the NEW TRAIL since we trusted Dan (our tour guide) for that trail to be much easier to trek. We arrived at the jump-off really late and we had no plans on camping out for the night.

Our trek started at 12:15 PM, made several stopovers and enjoyed the buko juice(P40), ice (P20) and Coke (P90) in those MINI-STOPS along the trail. Indeed, everything sold was so expensive. We just understood that it was difficult to transport those goods. Just a reminder, the parking fee and trail guide do not really cost too much if you share as a group. It's the food sold along the trail that will leave your pocket empty at the end of the day.

Just as expected, the trail was so beautiful. Not to mention, the view on both sides of the mountain. We effortlessly trekked through the 10 peaks (as if we were experts). We arrived at the summit around 2:00 PM. We spent a very relaxing two hours at the summit. The panoramic view of the surrounding CALABARZON mountains had to be cherished.

We started to make our way back to the jump-off through the New Trail at around 4:30 PM. Along the way, we made a stop at our "suki" store and enjoyed a few plates of pansit canton (P20).

While we were enjoying the sunset, we decided to do something really stupid. Yes, stupid because it really wasn't a safe thing to do! It will serve as a warning to other mountaineers to not imitate what we did. We did our simple version of Twerk It Like Miley on a trail which was obviously steep on both sides! Video is on the bottom portion of this blog. Another video also shows our very talented, Atty. Greg Delgado, doing his own version of the Nae Nae dance.

All in all, it was a very amazing experience. We started getting lost in Batangas but ended up having so much fun while admiring the loveliest views Batulao had to offer.

Sharing to you some of the amazing pictures I took with my Nikon Coolpix AW120 camera...