Day 4, Forty Day Writing Challenge "Another place"

Tagaytay isn't my favorite place in the world. But I'm always happy when I'm in Tagaytay because all the people who've been there with me are people I love. 

I had one great ambition that, despite our many trips, I have never done because my husband is very protective. I have always wanted to ride a pony on the volcano -- the smallest volcano in the world. You have to cross a lake to get to the island where the volcano is. And I have never done that.

However, one day (in our latest visit to Tagaytay), I was happy because my sister Alice said she'd ride the pony with me on the mountain. My husband can never refuse my sister. We went to a restaurant for breakfast before our volcano visit. However, at the restaurant, the waiters warned us that they had stopped allowing pony rides on the island of late, because of some activity which the volcano had been displaying. The most we could do is ride a boat and see the volcano from afar. So that ended my almost attempt to ride the pony there.

Ed, my husband, always refused to let me ride a pony on the volcano because he knew it wasn't very safe. A friend of mine said she almost fell into the volcano when she was a child. She'd been to the island many times with her family, but this time she ran so fast she slipped in. She tried to climb back up, but instead, she was slipping downward. Fortunately, her uncle rescued her.

Incidentally, after our last visit to Tagaytay,  a couple of weeks later the tiniest volcano in the world erupted on January 12 of this year, 2020.  

The last time the volcano erupted was 43 years before. This time, the ash was unusually wet, affecting the entire island, vegetation, fields, forests, animals, and inhabitants of the island. Ashfall also hit the surrounding waters and the coastal villages of nearby lands. The ash, because it was wet, appeared first as mud, then later dried up to resemble cement. Damage to plants and animals totaled some US$11 million, a huge bill for a provincial tourist hub. 

I don't know when we'll go back to Tagaytay. But it is a place where I recall going to first as a field trip, and later, many times, with my husband and our daughter. I remember the Christmas holiday Ed and I celebrated with our daughter Kat and her fiance Julian, my sister Sami and her husband Rex and their two sons, Martin and Franco. They own property in Tagaytay Highlands, which is the Forbes Park of Tagaytay. Rex and Julian did a round of golf, and then we had a delicious lunch in the clubhouse. I totally felt the strongest Christmas spirit of my life at that time, because they had a wonderful chorus group that sang Christmas songs live as we ate. And then there was the time when Ed, Kat and I went to Tagaytay with our two dogs, Mocha Barney and Winniechurchill. I remember how Winnie crept up the mattress and slept in Kat's arms the entire night. The dogs were fascinated because they had never been on a road trip before. I suppose for them, the world was a much larger place than they had realized. And I remember going to Tagaytay with Alice and visiting the Orlina museum. The museum was far beyond my expectations, it was a true learning experience. If ever you go there, get a guide because then you can fully appreciate the glassworks that he does. This museum was quite sophisticated and lent a new dimension to the meaning of art. I hope that when the volcano spewed its ashes, it didn't reach this museum.