Wow Nagcarlan, Laguna 2009

The destination featured at this page is our trip to Casa de Tobias at Nagcarlan, Laguna. Our group had planned this trip for months. I wasn’t included in the planning as I’m new to the group. This was actually my first chance to bond with them. All the photos below are courtesy of Lexter Torrecampo, one of the members of the Casa de Tobias trip.

Our assembly time is 6:00 AM at Gilmore Street in Quezon City. There were only a few of us who made it to the trip so we were like aalog-alog inside the van. There were only 3 of us behind, 4 at the middle and 2 beside the driver. I’m sure I’m going to enjoy this! Over-crowded is really not my thing to be honest. At the back of the van, I noticed that they had grocery items, daming chips! There were also smokes and liquor galore! I’m really gonna enjoy this trip!

trip to Nagcarlan via van

with JP Laurel

We went via South Super Highway traversing the usual path going to Puerto Galera. We promised each other that we would sleep our way to Nagcarlan since most of them came from their shifts.  However, nobody stopped talking, in other words, nobody slept at all. I guess we were all excited about our trip. The group is to meet another member, Mark, at Jollibee Calamba. So on our pitstop, we had a simple breakfast. I had chicken with palabok, peach mango pie and french fries with softdrinks. All the others roughly had the same as I did. O di ba, simple breakfast pa ito, hahaha! It took Mark to arrive at Jollibee, Calamba because he was waiting for us at Mamatid area. But thank goodness for that, I had enough time to smoke and scout the area for a while. I’ve been to Calamba, Laguna several times most especially in 2007 and not much had changed. The streets are still swarmed by people from the class C and D. The residential area mostly is in subdivision or village type of accommodations. But just the same, it’s the usual Manila smell, temperature and people, nothing peculiar about the place. If not only it was the birthplace of our National Hero Jose Rizal.

We did hard a hard time locating the resort eventhough we had our map. I wasn’t familiar with Nagcarlan kasi, it would be my first time to go to that area of Laguna. Although I’ve been to several neighboring areas such as Los Banos, Pagsanjan, Liliw and Calamba. But never to this area. It was a good thing that most of us have people skills so were able to communicate well with the people around the area. Some of them, as usual, gave wrong directions. One just had to be sensitive enough and have this flair for travelling to be able to detect if they were giving you the right or wrong directions. Good thing I’m very much endowed with that prowess and we were able to arrive at the location in one whole piece.

We were so tired, excited, hungry (again!) and all when we arrived at Casa de Tobias. The people greeted us warmly with refreshments. They served buko juice, fresh from their farm and some bread stuff which I wasn’t able to recall what that could be because I was so busy scouting the entire resort with my eyes. I love the pool, it’s like it’s inviting me to go change to my swimsuit and take a nice dip.

inside the clubhouse waiting for our lunch

eating our lunch inside the clubhouse

For our lunch we had kare-kare (a native Filipino dish made of peanut sauce), inihaw na bangus, sauteed vegetables and rice. They still served us fresh buko juice and water. For dessert, you guessed it, buko pandan. Making use of buko to full extent.  After our lunch, we had sometime of visiting the entire resort. I saw that they have a white horse, which is actually beside our kubo accommodation. They offer several types of accommodations that would suit your budget. I guess the kubo type is the cheapest since it isn’t air-conditioned. But judging the place, you don’t really need to have an air-conditioner at night because the place is situated beside Mt. Banahaw. The mountain chill will actually cool you off for your night’s sleep. Aside from the fact that the resort is just beside a river. So chill out! The kubo houses are situated along the slopes, so you’re like visiting Banawe Rice Terraces altogether.

inside our kubo house

Our room was made of sawali, kawayan and nipa materials. Even the beds are made out of this materials. I like how the yellow and orange curtains are combined together. It made me feel like I’m royalty. I’m not sure how the entire kubo house would fit all of us. But the owner is very kind, she allowed us to stay at her son’s kubo house which had its own comfort room.

We decided to take a dip in the afternoons where the sun won’t harm us big time. Good thing that Lexter brought his waterproof camera along so we had our chance to be caught on cam underwater. For our afternoon snacks, they prepared pansit bihon for us. I love pansit bihon! I’m not sure how they were able to know that but I ate heartily. Of course, there’s the buko juice again together with the pansit. Since we brought our own snacks along, it was junkfood galore for the afternoon and all night long! Wow! I love it! And the party officially begins. We had a game that night, it was copied from Eat Bulaga’s Pinoy Henyo. The topics ranged from songs, movies, places and even our officemates.

playing with the group

one of our underwater scenes at the pool

with JP Laurel again

my portrait

we're the green team

with Lexter Torrecampo, the camera owner