Saturday, November 6

We were invited to climb Mt. Tarak today in Bataan.  It's always exciting and refreshing to get out of Manila, and after the rice terraces earlier this year, I felt my body was prepared for anything.  We hiked up for about 3 hours until we reached a beautiful stream. We stopped for lunch and figured we might need to head back so we could get to the car before dark. Plus we had all run out of water. Not good when you have a 3 hour hike ahead of you. It was a little disappointing to accept the fact that we wouldn't reach the mountain top, but we soon found out the top of the mountain was still another 3 hour hike from the stream.  No wonder everyone else we saw were carrying camping gear...we thought we had missed out on something. 

It was still nice to be outside, get some exercise, and feel sore the next day.  I made everyone stop on the side of the road to drink some fresh buko (coconut juice straight out of the...shell?  nut? ) on the way home, so I was happy.