Tuesday, June 5, 2012

Going on the Other Road Trip

The nice natural landscape
Posing with the wild Nepenthes
Uly identified this as Gordonia sp.
I intended to go on a road trip with the family to visit a newly publicized  waterfalls in Pangil, Laguna.  We planned on going there for almost more than a month. But at the last minute, both my sisters' minds changed and I was left with no ride to Pangil and my cousins have already left Manila for Pangil much earlier.

At the 11th hour I text messaged Ronald Achacoso, if I could go with them instead. The company of Ronald, ace botanist Ulysses Ferreras, with friends Ernie and Noel had a different road trip planned, also in Laguna but had a flimsier itinerary. So instead of missing out on any adventure I chose to come with the botany guys going down south with destination: nowhere. 

One of the small waterfalls
Large climbing pandan
The trip proved to be fruitful  for all of us. Uly found an interesting species of mistletoe.  In his own words, the mistletoe find was well worth the trip. Ernie was ecstatic in just seeing a lot of orchid species growing well on trees, in a place where you would think orchids are long gone. Ronald and Noel were very much contented with the sights we saw, fog on the road at 9 am in the morning,  mini waterfalls at roadside and lots and lots of tree cover. My elation came with my first time in spotting in-situ Nepenthes species, a real sight to behold in my book.

It is nice to discover that Laguna can still hold some surprises up its hidden sleeves.  May these natural wonders stay forever unscathed by impending urbanizaton...wishful thinking!  But I was glad I went on this trip so good thing my sisters were fickle-minded.  

2 comments:

Plant Chaser said...

Your Laguna plans turned out to be a cloud with a silver lining. Your replacement trip sounds even more fun than what you had originally planned. - Bom

metscaper said...

Yup. Turned out well.