Tagaytay Volcano
Today we took a short cab ride, a long bus ride and a bumpy motorcyle sidecar ride to get us to Tagaytay City (35 miles or so South of Manila) to see Lake Taal — formed from the crater of an active volcano. Although the central ‘volcano island’ is the origin of most recent volcanic activity, the entire 10mile radius caldera was originally formed from a larger eruption.
The photo above was taken from the northern shore of Lake Taal, and you can see valcano island over my left shoulder. The satellite imagery to the right shows the entire lake zoomed in, and its location relative to Manila. Although it was very hot, it was also a little hazy throughout the day, even though there was a cool breeze off the water.
There are several restaurants with excellent views across the lake. We made the most of the views, first over a coffee in StarBucks, and then (after a couple of stronger drinks) over a traditional Filipino seafood dinner. There are more photos in my Gallery, including one of a small boy fascinated (or maybe horrified?) with the strange hairy white man, and another of Tave’s amusing order of “cola with beer” 