It has taken me three months to muster enough courage and the right frame of mind to start writing for C! Never in my wildest dreams did I ever even see myself writing for any publication, I’m not much for writing unless it’s a mushy love letter. I’ve been a broadcaster all my working life...25 years of it! So delving into the writer’s lair is giving me cold feet! But who knows? Opportunities may be plentiful.

So here goes something (not nothing). One day in a meeting at the C! HQ in Makati, Kevin Limjoco (The Boss Man) tasked my partner (Mike Potenciano, C! Magazine Deputy Editor) and I to go look for a place where we can write something for the Crossroads section of C! Magazine… nothing car related except that it should be a place worth “road tripping” to. Thus we hit the jackpot with Villa Escudero, a cultural jackpot that is, as per Tommi Potenciano, Mike’s bright and spunky 10 year old nephew who was with us for the weekend excursion.

We got into our test drive vehicle, the new Chevrolet Cruze and took the South Luzon Expressway (SLEX) all the way till the end and cut thru the Lucena, Batangas exit otherwise known as exit point 50, turned left to the Sto. Tomas junction. Headed straight down by passing the Alaminos and San Pablo City proper.. slowed down upon approaching the Quezon arch and turned left immediately but with caution as that hi-way is quite notorious for really nasty and gnarly road mishaps! If you’re the back-packer kind and just love the adventure in a less relaxed circumstance, you can take the bus plowing the Lucena route. Sorry can’t help you out on that and you got to figure what bus to take for yourself as my loyalty stays with BLTB Co. The pleasant and scenic two hour drive through Laguna’s countryside brings you to a historic colonial plantation and rural life of the 1800’s.

Villa Escudero Plantations & Resort is located in San Pablo, Laguna. Owned and operated by the Escudero family for hundreds of years now…and was only opened to the public in 1979 with only 3 employees and two tables across the pool. To date, Villa Escudero has grown from a staff of 3 to 500! This totally eco-friendly estate is a sprawling 450 hectares and is right smack in the middle of the development by Landco, they have electric jeepneys transporting their guests to and fro, a hydro power plant, Carabao powered karts, and the oddest technique to shoo away the flies! Around the restaurant are hanging clear plastic bags filled with water... it seems that flies get scared of their own reflection, thus making the place deceptively “fly-free”, even if we know they’re just around!

One day just won’t cut it, I suggest that you stay one more night to really experience the history and culture that this sanctuary has to offer. Mike & I only had one day to absorb and immerse ourselves into Villa Escudero… and plunge we did!

To begin with, we made a courtesy call to Tito Ado Escudero’s office inside the villa. We were greeted by warm and friendly “hellos” by their office staff and family who work for and with the estate. Upon entering Tito Ado’s office, time stood still. Well, more like it was back to the past… his furniture, beautifully old and well preserved, lights were minimal but warm, the ac was blowing really cold air, maybe even 16 degrees, opposed to the 34 degree temperature just outside! It was a mini museum so to speak. History was all over his walls, old picture frames with even older but beautiful people in it…if they could only talk! The Escudero family crest hanging behind tito Ado’s table, it felt like at any moment, a colonial soldier or even a “manang” wearing her baro’t saya would just walk in bringing us “mainit na tsokolate” or hot choco. My imagination already soaring!

The guided tour of the illustrious “Escudero Private Museum” was unforgettable. The edifice looked like an old Spanish style church from the outside; and a volt of one of the largest collections in the country from the inside still unmatched of its diversity as we speak. The main feature is the trove of religious art, consisting of silver altars, gilded carrozas, ivory headed saints and many more important pieces dating to Spanish times. The collection is a rich testimony of the artistry and piety of the Filipino. You will also be delighted in the antique oriental ceramics, costumes, dioramas of Philippine wildlife and ethnography, rare coins, Philippine furniture to name a few. Also near by, the Escudero ancestral home with the bust of their parents, their very own church and expansive flower gardens.

Lunch by the waterfalls anyone? First you must get there on a carabao drawn cart while being serenaded by native folk songs by singers and guitarists…then, please your senses with the tempting assortment of native dishes at the Labasin Waterfalls Restaurant. Meals are served at dining tables uniquely set in a few inches of cool running water from the falls where you can wade your feet into and the sparkling veil-like waterfalls as background.

Then after your sumptuous lunch by the waterfalls, experience history in song and dance at the pavilion. This travelogue for dance is the award winning Philippine Experience Show- now daily due to insistent public demand. “Never stylized” says Ado Escudero, President of Villa Escudero Plantations & Resort.

Nestor Cortes, who has a doctorate in Dance and the “paduan” of the late National Artist for dance Ramon Obusan, is the dance troupe’s Artistic Director. Under him are hundreds of dancers from different parts of Laguna, performing up to one hundred and twenty dances where the colonial and ethnic diversity of our country comes beautifully and colorfully into life!

Lake Labasin surrounds the pavilion where the song and dances take place and has balsa rides to offer as well… Balsa or bamboo crafted rafts that stay afloat and are almost unsinkable, are manned by locals who paddle their way up and down, slowly and gracefully on the 30-kilometer lake stretch with nothing but natural fauna around you… now that’s a calming and scenic sight-see don’t you think?

So next time you find yourself with nothing to do especially on a weekend, head down south to Villa Escudero, and don’t be a tourist in your own country! Their fiesta’s coming up on May 16… that’s going to be a big one! A full symphony orchestra with a 200 voice choir will greet you along with that welcome drink. So, what are you waiting for? Get your Filipiniana costumes ready, hire a karitela and bring your abanico! Surely, this is your lucky day, ‘coz you just hit the cultural jackpot!