Pico de Loro

I can easily enumerate the times I've gone hiking to the mountains because there are very few. Because reasons. But with the few chances I made it up to the peak, I understand why there are people who wouldn't mind going for long hikes because once they made it up there, every drop of sweat will be paid off. It's a wonderful feeling being up in the mountains, but still, I can't get myself into serious mountaineering, simply because I am lazy. So what made me go hiking this time? It's always the friends–I have lots of friends who love the outdoors. In other words, kaladkarin lang talaga ako. 

This was supposedly a two-day camping trip, but we had to make it into a day hike because some of us had other stuff to attend to. We only had an hour of sleep the night before because Dona, Mara and I dropped by the Coca-Cola Concert ng Bayan, thus we made it back home very late, and we had to wake up at 3am.

It's always best to start hikes the earliest possible time. However, things started to go awry when we couldn't find the Saulog bus at Lawton. Thank goodness our cab driver was kind enough to drive us to Baclaran where we found a bus bound for Ternate, Cavite. Fare is P75 each and the trip took one hour. We got off somewhere there are tricycles going to the market. We're supposed to get a tricycle ride and then hire a jeepney to take us to Pico de Loro jump off. (Sorry I don't know the exact direction clearly because I did not pay attention to the details.) Lucky for us, upon alighting the bus, a van stopped right before us and inside were Mara's friends from Tagaytay who happened to be hiking to Pico de Loro that day as well. Instant free ride for us! We saved P500 for the jeepney/tricycle ride. Also, we reached the jump off earlier.

At the jump off, you have to pay P20 per person to the DENR. We began hiking a little before 7am. We were left behind because Mara's friends were running the trails and we had to stop every now and then to take photos and eat. It's nice to slower your pacing so you have more time to appreciate the surroundings.

Didn't see it coming. Ooops

At around 11 am, we reached this deck where you can get a hint on how much longer you're gonna have to climb since it offers a good view of the peak of Pico de Loro and also a top view of Cavite. From this point, you'll get all excited to reach that peak. It was also at this point where we met Mara's friends again. They've already climbed the summit and were on the way to the waterfalls. After the necessary photo taking, we preceded to the last stretch of the the ascend.

Climbing the 'monolith' or that rock where there are people looked challenging but we didn't have the appropriate rope. We just took bunch of daya shots instead and had lunch right there at the summit with the 12 noon sun above. Before we could even clean up our leftover, the rain poured. We were two groups at the peak that time, the other we befriended along the way. They were a group of high school or college students who probably had free time and just decided to climb. They were accompanied by an adult, probably their teacher. They didn't even have trail food so we gave them some of ours, dahil andami naman kasing baon.

We thought the clouds were just passing by but we decided to get going as it was pouring because it was too cold and it might get more difficult along the trail if it rains harder. I was saying the reason for the rain was because Mara just bought an underwater camera haha. Buti na lang nakakain na kami. After some time, when the rain stopped, I felt sleepy while hiking I wished it would just rain. The rain went on and off though, and on the way down, all we were thinking was to reach Camp 1 sooner so we can have a bottle of cold coke. We reached the end of the trail at around 5pm.