Flashbacks - Trip to Arayat, Candaba, etc.

As I've mentioned in a previous blog, the first leg of our exploration of Pampanga was to Arayat. One of our jogging buddies here at Greenfields mentioned some good halo-halo at a place called Jurado's in Arayat. We called former classmate and fellow retiree Myrna (Mercado) Alvarez and husband Vir and told them of the idea and since we're in the same boat - palaboys, of course they wanted to go.

We picked them up from SM parking lot and we proceeded towards Mexico, Sta. Ana on the way to Arayat. We made a couple of wrong turns. Maps and GPS are fairly new ideas here so we don't use them. Instead we rely on tricycle drivers' info which comes free of charge by the way, which you can never beat! Anyway, we made a right turn (to Candaba) instead of straight and of course a tricycle driver gave us correct directions and when we noticed Mt. Arayat getting bigger as we got closer, we thought we were going in the right direction. We finally arrived at Jurado's after a couple more direction queries.




We had one of their specialty chicken dishes and their famous halo-halo afterwards. It was indeed pretty good. But with the weather around here, it's difficult to be disappointed with a cool serving of halo-halo.



It was a little past 12 noon when we finished so we said, "Well it's too early to go home. Since we already know the way to Candaba...."



Once we passed the Candaba sign, the change in scenery was pretty obvious.



We talked with some townsfolk and they told us of the upcoming Ibon-Ebon Festival which will be graced by non-other than President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo, which prompted the town mayor to rebuild a road towards a farm frequented by migratory birds. We decided to come back once the road is completed and with less people around once the festival is over.

I took pictures of some of the old houses of Barangay Pescaderos before departing the town.





On the way out, I chanced some of these scenes of Mt. Arayat from a different perspective. Cool shots, don't you think?



We have a little more time so we figured we might as well go to San Luis. On the way there from Mexico, I think it's barangay Sta. Maria, there were hundreds of huge mango trees.

Next on the itinerary: Porac, Floridablanca, Sasmuan and beyond...