Tatlong Krus @ Paete, Laguna

Paete, is a small town in Laguna known for its wood carvings. We visited Paete to buy Christmas presents for Nikki's teachers. We were planning to give them a wooden Crucifix hand curved by the Paeteans. We bought one of those when we went to Paete a few months back.

Mommy and Nikki even bought a complete set of the seven guardian angels to guard our home from any unwanted visitors.

After the shopping spree, we asked around town on how to get to the top of the Sierra Madre mountain where 3 white crosses stands. Pligrims flock to this shrine atop the mountain by foot during Holy Week. There were two ways to reach the crosses, the first is via San Antonio but only by foot and the other is via the town of Longos. It was a long and winding road to the top via Longos town. Although cemented, since it was not a regular route for motorized vehicles, only one lane of the two way road was passable due to tall and wild grasses. After 30 minutes of driving uphill, we finally reached our destination thanks to some local folks who had showed us the way. It was truly breath taking to see the 3 giant crosses right before our eyes. We could see the whole town of Paete below the view deck. James and John were very thrilled of the strong winds blowing in their faces.

After enjoying the view on top, we hurried up to go down since it was almost sunset. It would be difficult to maneuver those curves in the the dark. When we got back to the town we wanted to check on the light house. But to our disappointment, we could not reach the light house because the lake's water flooded the road. According to a local we had asked, during this time of year, the water of the lake rises and floods the whole reclamation area.

There are indeed hundreds of secrets one could discover in this small and quiet town of Paete.