As promised, I'll be posting the places I have visited for my fieldworks. So first off, the Seven Maar Lakes of San Pablo, Laguna.
I know I said the seven lakes of San Pablo but I will be focusing on their famous twin lakes instead since this is the most touristy out of the seven lakes :) It's only after entering grad school that I was introduced to these lakes of Laguna. These seven lakes are situated near each other and are believed to be formed by the explosion of Mt. San Cristobal back in the days.
So the seven lakes are called: Sampaloc, Bunot, Calibato, Palakpakin, Mohicap, Pandin, and Yambo. These lakes are mostly used for aquaculture but like I said, 2 of them are actually popular to tourists. I'll be introducing all seven lakes but will focus more on those you can actually visit for a day of recreation :)
Lake Yambo
Lake Yambo is located in Brgy. San Lorenzo and is considered as one of the top destinations here in San Pablo City, Laguna (SPC, as what the locals call this place). As per our surveys, this lake has a maximum depth of 36 meters. Worry not though since they let you borrow life vests so you could take a dip :) What this place is most popular though is the food they offer. When you visit Lake Yambo (and Lake Pandin for that matter), you'll be riding a bamboo raft which can take you to the middle of the lake where you can have your magnificent lunch. Their food choice usually involves tilapia, paco salad, ginataang hipon, rice, banana for desert, and bottled water.
Lake Yambo and Lake Pandin (image grabbed from here)
Lake Yambo is pretty accessible since the road is already completed. Although there's roughly a 30-minute drive from the main road to get to the lake. To get to this lake, you'll be traversing the road after turning left at Nagcarlan Municipal Hall. You have to keep a sharp eye though since the inner road which will take you straight to Lake Yambo is easy to miss! It's on the left side of the road if you came from Nagcarlan. Rest assured though since Lake Yambo is registered in Google, you can easily use Waze of GMaps if you're heading there. Since we usually rent a van whenever we visit, I'm not quite familiar with the commute. But I guess you'll really have to rent a tricycle (which will surely cost you) to actually get you to the lake.
I'll get back with the rates cause as far as I remember, they charge according to the number of pax as well as the number of hours you'll be renting their bamboo rafts :)
*bamboo raft rental includes life vests rental as well as guides/bangkeros
Lake Pandin
Just across Lake Yambo is its twin, Lake Pandin. These lakes are dubbed as twin lakes because of their proximity with each other as well because of the rock that separates the two. However, from the two, Lake Pandin is deeper with a maximum depth of around 63~64 meters. The activities here in Lake Pandin is similar to its twin. You can rent a bamboo raft, eat your local lunch at the center of the lake, swim around with your trusted floaters, etc.
Whenever we visit Lake Pandin though, we don't use the tourist entrance but simply climb up the hill which separates the two lakes. It's a short 5-minute hike to get to the other side but you need to have contact with Lake Pandin so they can pick you up from the drop-off point. One thing I noticed whenever we conduct surveys though is Lake Pandin is more popular than Lake Yambo :)
The menu for their lunch meals is the same as that with Lake Yambo. However, their rates are as follows:
Bamboo raft rental (w/o food) - PHP 220-250/pax (we don't know why they don't have a standard rate)
Bamboo raft rental (w/ food) - PHP 360/pax minimum of 4 people
*bamboo raft rental includes life vests rental as well as guides/bangkeros
--------------------------------------------------
Here are some short introductions to the other lakes of SPC:
Lake Sampaloc
Lake Sampaloc (image grabbed from here)
So this lake is situated in the middle of the city so it's very accessible. People go here to walk or jog around the circumference of the lake. Food stalls line the "park" area of the lake so you surely won't be feeling hungry when you stay here :)
Lake Bunot
This lake is mainly used for fish farming. It's also very accessible (like most of these lakes are) but you won't be seeing much here. The lake is surrounded by residential houses whose main source of income is the lake.
Lake Calibato
Similar to Bunot, this lake is mainly for aquaculture. However, unlike the others, going here requires a short hike down stony and muddy paths.
During our last field sampling, they already put railings along the path for the protection of visitors as well as of the locals. To note, this is the deepest among the seven lakes with a maximum depth of 135 meters! You can try visiting here but yep, there really is nothing to do here except for the hike and the view of the lake. Though we did hear a local saying that there's a waterfall that can be accessed through this lake, we have yet to confirm it though :/ I'll keep you posted about that!
Lake Palakpakin
Similar to the others, this lake is used for fishing. It's also the shallowest among the seven. Very accessible too but really don't have anything to do here hehe.
Lake Mohicap
I've only been here once but they are already turning this place into a tourist spot. You can ride a balsa or bamboo raft here too to tour you around the lake and they also have a sort of park going on at the entrance. I don't quite remember the rates though :( I'll be sure to update you guys about it! Our bangkero did say that there is a small cave near Lake Mohicap which they can take you should you want to visit.
--------------------------------------------------
So that's all for this post! Hope you'll get to visit the wonderful seven lakes of San Pablo, Laguna :) till my next post!
- tatin
No comments:
Post a Comment