Heidee blogs: A Breath of Fresh Air in Batangas

It was off to Batangas for me and my P&G friendz last Friday night. We split up and rode Dom's and Jerome's cars. Janice, Gelle, Jerome and I rode with Doms in his car while Yen, Drew, Arni and Rich rode in Jerome's new CRV which was driven by his brother. We met in the office then headed to Caltex Buendia where we used our company benefit Caltex star cards to load up on gas, junk food and drinks. Then we rode all the way to Mataas na Kahoy, Batangas, stopping over in between to have dinner in Greenwich. When we got to El Madero Farm and Resort, we squealed in delight. The place was so beautiful that we peppered our Batangas boy organizer (Jerome) with compliments. The house was big and had a huge bedroom, sala and washroom with its own bathroom and jacuzzi. Right outside it was a private pool that we shared with another house. Wow. After stashing our things on the shelves in the washroom, we settled in the living room and played cards and charades. We had so much fun screaming and laughing that we crawled into the two king-sized beds at 3am.

The next day we left the resort later than planned (don't we always?) and headed off to Bluroze Farms Parks and Wildlife for lunch and sight seeing. A sizzling meal was already inclusive of the entrance fee, and we ate them together in the park's resto. Afterwards we looked at a very huge python. It was so big, it could've swallowed Yen or Arni. Then we decided to give the rubber tire swings a shot. When it was my turn, Jerome pushed my swing so hard, causing me to swing so high up that I started yelling at him to stop it because I was scared already. I'm an acrophobic, you see. After the swings we paid the ostriches a visit. One of the ostriches got so enamoured of Rich that it followed him around the fence and at one point, actually dipped its head low and preened its feathers at him! There were also plenty of baby ostriches all around, without any fences, that you could reach out and pet them. There was a kiddie palayground nearby, where there was a big cake-like structure where we asked Drew, the birthday boy, to pose. There was also a small pumpkin house. We then went into a maze, with Jerome's brother and cousins leading us. We went through a bridge and came out into what looked like Jerusalem: a desert with an oasis, complete with sheep lapping at a lake of water. Then we got back into the maze so we could go out the exit. By theb we were sweating so much we walked back to the resto for a drink of water. Jerome wanted us to go up the tower so we could look over Lipa, but we were so tired and the sun was scorching so we just settled on having our picture taken on the ground. We also fed corn to the doves fluttering about.

We stopped over at a spot overlooking Taal lake, took some pictures and ate some homemade suman. Then we headed back to the resort, rested awhile, then donned our bikinis and submerged ourselves in the jacuzzi. Pure bliss! At night it was time for dinner and we had a hearty meal of rice, barbeque, steamed tilapia, laing, green mango with alamang, using our hands to eat and banana leaves for plates as per Janice's request. Yum! After dinner we took a short dip in the private swimming pool. Then Gelle and I hit the jacuzzi and sang ourselves hoarse with water upto our throats, ala-Regine. After drying off and watching PBB, we went by the poolside and played charades once again. This time, we were joined by Jerome's three relatives. Jerome and I were the "hosts" so we escaped the punishment inflicted everytime a team won 3 points over the other team. In the end they got so drunk on brandy that we slept at 3am.

The next day Jerome served us the rest of the homemade suman (three kinds, all delicious!) and fruits for breakfast. That guy is so maasikaso talaga, promise. After everyone had bathed and packed, we checked out then headed to a lomi place for lunch. We also tried some chami, and it was more delicious than the lomi. Then it was back to Makati, back to our regular lives once again.