May 2-3, 2015
Mt. Batulao (Traverse) + Burot Beach, Calatagan, Batangas
(First five photos grabbed from Mam tal/dhin/nicole)

I was really excited when Mam Tal invited me again to this day hike on Mt. Batulao. This mountain is 811 meters above sea level so that only means that this hike was much harder than Pico de Loro (664 MASL). So Asis and I met up with the rest of the group, as arranged, at the Buendia DBLT bus station around 5am. We arrived in Evercrest, Batangas at 7:30ish am. At 8, we started our climb. We took the new trail which they said was much easier than the old one but heck, nothing’s ever easy when you’re climbing a mountain. Ha-ha! I’m not sure what time we reached the summit and I didn’t even know that that was the summit since there were like 12 peaks at Mt. Batulao. The view was great but not as great as Pico’s. And I don’t know what would happen to me if Ramuel (guide slash “photographer”) wasn’t there assisting me on our way back (traverse, old trail) to the jump-off point.

It was scary on our way down with all those jagged rocks and slippery paths along the way but we all made it. We got back around 3:30pm. We hiked for almost 8 hours under the scorching heat and that was okay since we really had lots of rest stops. So yes, we conquered Mt. Batulao!! Hurrah! Btw hello, choco na batok! Nagsiitiman. Ha-ha.

We camped at Burot Beach, Calatagan after our hike. Burot’s not the same anymore which is sad. There were lots of garbage here & there and loud crazy vacationers and there were only a few big starfishes left. Oh well. But that didn’t stop us from enjoying ourselves. I even saw 5 shooting stars and that made my day 10x better! It was definitely a long fun-filled weekend for all of us. Another wonderful adventure to start the month right.

Duckface | Habang atin ang gabi ♡