An Excursion to Lake Danao

During our month-long stay in Leyte a couple of years ago, we have heard about Lake Danao from the locals and how it was a great place for a picnic. Since then, I've been urging my co-workers to visit the place but we were unable to visit it due to the work schedule. It was only when we were almost done with our project that we decided to squeeze in checking out this lake.

Lake Danao in Leyte is only one out of the 5 lakes named 'Danao' here in the Philippines ( I just found out thru wikipedia). Lake Danao (a tectonic lake) in Leyte is a guitar-shaped centerpiece of the Lake Danao Natural Park which is 2,193 hectares wide. The other Lake Danao is in Albay (a crater lake), the other (a tectonic lake and the largest lake in the Visayas) is in Cebu, the other one is in Negros Oriental (a crater lake and a twin lake of Lake Balinsasayao) and the last one is in Sorsogon (a crater lake).

It was late in the afternoon when we went to visit Danao. Upon checking out however and asking the locals if we can still avail of their floating cottage trip (the cottage will take you to the other side of the lake and back), they said it was already late (we arrived there past 5pm) and almost dark. 💔 We then decided to just take photos and enjoy the serenity of the lake. The lake looked peaceful at that time of the day and there were no other visitors except for us. After a fair share of taking photos and interviewing the locals, we decided to make the most out of our visit and go to the other side.

We hopped back into our vehicle and drove to the other side of the lake. We drove for a good 10-15 minutes until we reached the view deck. (Sadly however I can no longer find my other photos 😞). It was dark when we reached the view deck so we only checked out the area for 5 minutes top. We drove back to the city (Ormoc) since the Natural Park was not that exciting to look at anymore at that time (it gave me the creeps!).

Despite the short trip to this lake and not being able to ride the floating cottage, it was still a nice trip for me. Mostly it's because it was one lake danao down and 4 more to go. 😁 But hey, the next time I'm in Leyte, I'll still check out this lake. 👍

All the best! <always!>
~filnette 🍀