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A VISIT TO THE VOLCANO…...

Woody and Peggy Whidden

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have been my mainstays during the time I’ve been at AIIAS. It was Woody who met me with his car at the NINOY INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT in Manila the night I arrived, and Peggy who’s cooked the fabulous food every time I’ve been to their house for meals and good conversation - over and over again. Woody is the “fixer” when I have a problem (and what I’m going to do from Friday to Tuesday without him here, I’m not entirely sure), and my guide to the distinctive and unfamiliar society in which I find myself. On the first Sunday (or maybe it was Monday) of my stay, the Whiddens invited me to ride with them to see the TAAL VOLCANO, which sits in the midst of TAAL LAKE, that occupies an extinct 25-30 kilometer wide caldera that has erupted multiple times over the last several thousand years and longer. We would see some of the surrounding countryside and a bit of wildlife, as well as both rural and small town Philippine living situations.

So, off we went up the road
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In front of AIIAS, traffic was light, but as we climbed the hill toward the rim of the crater, things got more “interesting”.
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In front of us at the “T”, we pulled up behind a “Trike” – the poor man’s taxicab in these parts.
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Essentially a motor scooter with a sidecar, they are powered for one or two people, but if you look at the trike up ahead on the right, you can see that many more can be “accommodated”. I’ve seen two people sitting sideways behind the driver, three more crammed into the sidecar, plus their baggage on the rack. Needless to say, there is a serious lack of power in these situations, and woe to the automobile that gets stuck behind one on a hill……

Another ubiquitous form of Philippine transportation for those who don’t have their own wheels is the JEEPNEY
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which you can see ahead of us in this photo taken as we entered TAGAYTAY, the town spread along the rim of the ancient caldera. I’ve read about these for a long time, but nothing prepared me for seeing them “in the flesh” – absolutely stunning variety of decorations of a basic body plan. I’ll try to take some pictures specifically of Jeepneys before I leave.

Down the road a piece, we came to a bakery that Whiddens have stopped at before,
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and they were eager to introduce me to a local specialty – Green Coconut Pie. We examined the merchandise
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and you can see the desired object on the top right – BUKO PIE. The price is certainly right – 120 pesos is a bit less than US$3.00, and they bought one for home use and one for me (and Tim Standish).
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I enjoy pretty much all forms of food, and I ate a couple of pieces and liked Buko Pie well enough, although Tim found excuses to avoid eating even a single piece. Before I left for Kuala Lumpur, I returned half of my pie to Whiddens (they had told me this would be OK, earlier) and froze the quarter or so that remained for use after my return. You have to admit it looks a bit strange
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and this is because they scoop the unconsolidated coconut meat off the inside of the shell off the green coconut, and some of it is like jelly, and some is like a soft form of the coconut we’re familiar with. The result looks vaguely like the geological strata we’re talking about in class during this course, and the flavor is pleasant, but anything but strong. To me, it bears NO resemblance to coconut cream pie, for instance, and perhaps that’s why it’s somewhat disappointing to the U.S. palate – at least as exemplified by mine and Tim’s.

Back on the road, we kept passing by and under these beautiful trees in flower.
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From the leaves,
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I believe they’re some variety of acacia, and they put me in mind of the FLAME TREES OF THIKA, although I haven’t the faintest idea whether there’s a connection of not. One thing for sure, even for a botanist as poor as your correspondent, the pods
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make it quite clear that we’re dealing with a legume. The individual flowers support the diagnosis, too
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At this spot in the road, there were cars parked everywhere, and a knot of traffic because of all the people crossing back and forth. When we got nearer, we could see the reason
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We were approaching “Mary’s ground”….and beyond that, I can tell you nothing. I’m assuming that this is a place for people with a particular devotion to the Virgin Mary, but whether it’s someplace a miracle occurred, or where someone had a vision, or just what decided folks to put it here, I don’t know. It was pretty impressive, though.

Actually, it wasn’t long until we saw Mary again
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this time in the garden of a convent on the INSIDE of the caldera’s rim. You are looking at Taal Lake, situated inside the ancient caldera, and the island contains Taal Volcano, still alive and still dangerous.
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The nicely shaped cone at the right is NOT the volcano – it’s extinct, and they do agriculture inside it, on nice flat fields formed from material that has almost filled it up.
The high ridge of the island is BEHIND the active volcanic vent,
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so between a low line of hills rising from the lake and the prominent mountainous topography beyond, we find some lakes and the currently active crater. Benign as this scene appears, this volcano has done serious damage over an extended period of time, and has threatened local life fairly recently, and there is considerable worry over and preparation for the next one. Like living in earthquake-prone CALIFORNIA however, constantly living on the alert proves impossible for a lot of people, and I’m guessing that the next eruption is going to catch a lot of people completely unprepared.
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I suppose this could stand as an example of what I’m talking about – a magnificent and extensive (prospective) condominium project inside the caldera. The land owned by this group stretches from very close to the rim all the way down to the lake, and we kept seeing gates leading to paved streets winding through the tropical forest behind fences topped with barbed wire…..a lot of money spent, and what looked like substantial infrastructure in place, but very little construction completed, or even underway. I wish them luck – it won’t be the first, of course….if you look past the gazebo, behind the man’s head is a white splash on the hill that makes the horizon line….THAT is a condo development that has been done for a while. We didn’t go over there, but it looks like quite the place.

As we got closer to the lake, we could see a lot of “somethings” out in the water
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These are fish pens, in which thousands, and ultimately millions, of TILAPIA ( a COMMONLY FARMED FISH) are growing to market size.

On shore, there are ponds for fish, as well – and some of them even grow rice, with fish “planted” in the same paddy as the grain. Other wildlife was also seen – notice the white goat on the berm in the foreground.
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Nearer the road, we saw a little family hunting through the leaf litter for lunch – the Dad dressed in his Sunday best, and very proud of himself.
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We were lucky to get to see the Philippine national animal (NOT the Subaru) at one point
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This is the CARABAO, a variety of the water buffalo, and it is ubiquitous in the back country of the islands. It’s a tractor, a truck, a fertilizer machine, a pet…it fills a lot of niches in the Philippines.

A little farther along, a sadder sight
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These are the endemic PHILIPPINE ORIOLES, and they were trapped from the wild by the gentleman who offered them to us for US$12.00 the pair. It was a real temptation to buy them for release back on campus, but this is a bad thing to do. Feeding the market for wild-caught birds only ensures that more birds will be taken – similar lessons were learned BUYNG SLAVESfor release, which some Christian groups attempted in the Sudan. It doesn’t work, however good it makes us feel. We told the man thanks anyway, and hoped he’ll get out of the business if no one pays him for his birds.

Here’s another set of ponds – can you see the two differences from the last ones (nothing to do with the goat)?
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In the sky you can see a circling tern….there were a flock of them swirling around, and they LOVE Tilapia. The poor fish farmer has to find a defense, and you can see it if you look carefully at the pond in the foreground – a set of wires/strings/monofilament stretched over the surface to discourage the voracious piscivores (look THAT up in your FUNK and WAGNALLS).

Right across the road behind us, we looked up to see a different sort of bird swirling against the sky
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These are BEE-EATERS, and they live in those holes you can see up there on the vertical surface of the bank, up above the large grass bunches. They are quite attractive birds
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and we enjoyed watching them for a few minutes before going on…..

Down the road a bit, we saw the shore installation for servicing the fish pens, here visible against the island, and beyond it, the rim of the caldera…..
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The service boats are diverse, but these are perhaps the most interesting…..
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I don’t know what the background of, or reason for, this particular shape. These boats appear to provision the “guardhouses” (my assumption) on the fish pens,
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and (I hope) carry away waste, and must surely be particularly active during the harvest of the “crop” of fish.

Just beyond this spot where we stopped for photographs, we turned a corner and looked up the coast a few hundred yards to a road shrunken to a narrowness barely big enough for a single car – a number of landslides had completely blocked the road during a major typhoon a year or two ago, and restoration was proceeding with “all deliberate speed” which is the norm in a developing country, especially if your province voted for the losing candidate in the last election. I’m constantly being reminded how blessed we are to live in the U.S., even with all its problems. If we can inch our way “back to the future”, we may have even more reason for gratitude…..

We turned the car around, motored along the shore to the road climbing the wall of the caldera. Once on top, we headed back to Tagaytay, and while inching forward, waiting for the traffic to make the turn back down the hill toward AIIAS, we passed this roadside nursery….
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…they are common here, and remind me of the many similar nurseries we saw along the roads between AUA and NAIROBI, last summer in Kenya. Developing countries may frustrate at times (the traffic in both Nairobi and Manila is simply impossible), but it offers us many compensations, as well.

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