After the simple but satisfying lunch the family offered me, I couldn’t get myself to turn down their offer for the boat ride. I think that was the whole idea in the first place but what bothers me most is the steep fee to go to the island itself. And being all alone, I was hoping I would be able to share the boat with someone else so it won’t be as expensive but I don’t think another tourist would be wandering into this part of town soon.
The dispatcher of the boats introduced himself as “Bert” Mendoza, most probably for Roberto, he hollered for one of his boat men to bring me to the island. I didn’t need to pay right there and he told me I can pay when I get back. When I got to Talisay town, the sky was overcast but it has since cleared up and now it is sunny and hot. The outrigger canoe does not have a roof but no matter, it was a short boat ride any way.
The boatman has been doing this job for 20 years now and it seems that he knows the lake quite well. This would be my first time to set foot on Taal Volcano after seeing it from afar so many times. All along my idea of Taal Volcano was this conical structure on the right. I kept asking Bert if I can go there but he said no one goes there and kept saying that it was “dead”. The actual volcano is the large island on the to the left of the cone. Who am I to argue with people who have been living in its shadow all this time?
The ride to Taal Volcano was short, taking around 20 minutes to cross Taal Lake. Along the way, I got to see the lake itself with its clear water, it is also filled with sea grass. This lake used to be an inlet of the nearby Balayan Bay but a volcanic eruption sealed and turned the inlet into what it is now eventually losing its salinity and isolating the lake and its tawilis from the rest of the world forever.
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