A mountain located in Batangas, it takes about 3 hours by bus from Manila  to reach the town of Cuenca. From the bus stop, a tricycle takes you to the barangay center to register (just in case you get lost and need someone to verify  your existence), and then on to the foot of the mountain. There are cottages at the foot where you can eat home-cooked meals and take a shower.

The trek up the mountain takes about 2-3 hours, depending on your stamina. Along the way, there are several make-shift shops where enterprising vendors sell ice-cold fruit drinks to mountaineers. The price of the drink goes higher the higher up the mountain you get. Mt. Makulot is a bit difficult to climb, at least for us first timers, especially since a lot of the passages are steep, but not too steep to require ropes.

Towards the top, you get to a flat area where all trekkers set up camp. It's wise to get there early to get good a spot. Arriving there late in afternoon gives you enough time to eat and take a long deserved nap after a very grueling climb up.  Evenings at Makulot are characterized by camp-site cooking and drinking. We were fortunate enough to get to know some campers who offered us some hot meals, as opposed to the canned goods and sandwiches that we brought along. After dinner, it was drink until you get drunk, or until you ran out of drinks, whichever came first. But if you're enterprising enough, just walk around the other tents and people are more than willing to offer you a shot or two.

The next morning, leaving our tent, we went for a short walk towards The Rockies.   It's a beautiful spot where the view is spectacular, or so they say. Unfortunately for us, the rains brought along with it a heavy fog. However, we were still able to catch a glimpse of Mt. Taal and the surrounding area, more or less.

To reach the peak of Mt. Makulot actually required another thirty minutes, but since we were out of film, it seemed of no use if we couldn't produce proof that we were actually at the peak. Or maybe we were just too tired to do that. Well, maybe next time.

The trek down the mountain took far less time, about an hour in our case. Unless you decide to just roll down until you get to the foot of the mountain, in which case you'd probably make it in 15 minutes.

At the foot, you can take a shower and eat a meal if you want to, or you can just hop on a bus to the next town like Lipa and eat a meal there. We ate at Racks, hey, one of us had to celebrate his birthday in style, and cheap meal promos was the way to go!

                                     (august 14-15, 2000)