We drove toward San Pablo on day 2 of our road trip, heading for the twin lakes, Lakes Pandin and Yambow. Remember how I mentioned that Jenna served her mission in San Pablo? We totally drove by her mission headquarters. Serendipitously! Crazy huh!? It was the tenderest thing ever.
On our way there, we drove through some really amazing areas. Just, wow. It was beautiful.
And it was so cool to see all the smaller towns that we drove through on our way there. Also, after yesterday, we downloaded Waze, the GPS app that everyone around here uses. Cause Apple maps wasn’t cutting it, I’m pretty sure it was responsible for us getting lost half the time. #fail. Waze is my new BFF. We didn’t get lost once. Not once. It was glorious. Also, look, a WAL-ter Mart!!! BWAHAHAHAHA!!
Anyway, we arrived at our destination and we parked the car. And there was a goat tethered in the parking area. Cause, obviously. Clara insisted on taking a picture of the goat.
We had a 15 minute walk/hike to the picnic area. We were led by Raymart, who was probably 12. He pointed out various things as we went along, including a Horse ranch, a chicken farm (there were hundreds of chickens, and they made quite the racket. It’s behind the wall that you see in the picture below.) And these cute little plants that fold in their leaves when you touch them.
The kids had a great time on that little hike. They were racing each other and just fascinated by every little thing.
We got to the picnic area. It wasn’t quite like any picnic area I’d ever seen before. There were chickens and dogs and cats running amok. The kids had a great time chasing them and even got to hold the chickens. They were in heaven. Oh. And there were 2 monkeys in a cage, elevated above the tables. That fella, in the picture below, is putting a string on the baby chick’s leg so that he can take it on a walk! Haha!!
We went over to the comfort room to get changed into our swimsuits…. And I saw this treasure of a sign.
After changing, we jumped aboard our bamboo raft. We were on a raft with three women from Manila (Makati). There are a series of ropes stretched over the entire lake.
And there are 2 fellas per raft that pull the rafts across the lake using the ropes. It’s quite the system.
The water came up through the raft, and so Jonathan put Logan down on the bamboo, and he splashed and was happy as could be. It was freaking adorable. And Clara sat underneath the table for a good portion of the trip across the lake collecting water plants.
Also, we got buko, aka drinkable coconuts 🙂 I will say, I think it is a bit of an acquired taste. Honestly, not my most favoritest thing in the world. Not terrible, but yeah, not my favorite. Logan loved it. He LOVED it. If we stopped feeding it to him, he yelled at us. #bossylittleguy.
The view was amazing. Seriously. This place was Gorgeous. I’m so glad that we finally got out of the concrete jungle into a real jungle.
And the water was lovely and warm. And did we mention, it was flipping gorgeous!!
We got over to the other side of the lake and then we hiked up a short incline (maybe the equivalent of 100 stairs) and there was lake Yambow on the other side.
It was an awesome view. And we need to mention that Jonathan is such a boss. He hiked up and down this slippery, muddy mess holding Logan (who was heavier than usual from sitting in the water in his diaper…)
Of course we had to take a precious family photo. Yes, Jonathan’s shirt is soaked. Logan’s wet diaper gooshed all over Jonathan’s shirt (yes, goosh. That’s an onomatopoeia, folks)
Jonathan and I both hiked down in our bare feet because our shoes were worse than worthless.
Once we got back to the bottom, our raft was shifted over to the swimming area.
We got to spend almost 2 hours just swimming and hanging out. The water was the perfect temperature. It was delightfully warm 🙂
We were really glad that we had brought the kids’ lifejackets, because the ones provided were pretty terrible…. 
I spent half my time preventing mine from swallowing my head. Though, Wogie’s wasn’t too much better…
He didn’t like it very much…. So, in the end, we just let him splash around in the water on the raft. He was in heaven.
Really, all of us were. This was one of our very favorite activities that we did the entire time we were in the Philippines.
We took a small break in the middle for snacks.
And to take an epic video. Yup. Epic. (Particularly if you pretend the Chariots of Fire soundtrack is playing in the background.)
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After our brief repast, we were right back to swimming.
I sure like this fella.
After our time was up, we went back to the other side of the lake.
The kids chased the chickens some more, held the chickens some more.
And then we started making our way back to the parking area. And there was a trike driver waiting there, offering rides to the parking lot.
Juju was so tired already. So, we took the trike guy up on his offer. I am amazed that trike didn’t fall apart before our very eyes. We were literally off-roading in that thing. It was nuts.
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We drove back down into San Pablo proper for a late lunch. We then headed back to our hotel. Again, drove along less traveled roads and it was awesome. Ofcourse, we stopped to take pictures a few times. I said it before, I’ll say it again: this is a beautiful country.
We got back to the hotel, and we went swimming. Cause, of course!! And man it was eventful. Juju is a bit nervous around water, even wearing his life jacket. But today, Jonathan stretched him a little bit and had him float by himself (while wearing his life jacket). He was quite nervous and shouted ‘I want you to hold me’ any time Jonathan let him go. But by the end, he was fine. And he was able to kick his way over to Jonathan. He did it while remaining vertical in the water, so it basically looked like he was running underwater. It was quite funny. And Clara tried her hand at swimming without a life vest at all. And she did pretty well with it. Progress all around!
As we were heading in, we saw the largest snail I have ever seen. Clara loved it and insisted on petting it. But Juju is afraid of snails (Bwahahaha!!) so he refused to even go near it. I tried not to laugh too obviously, lest I make him self concious.
We had dinner, and went to bed early, cause we were beat!
