It lifts my spirits to finally be able to sit in front of my laptop and write for leisure. It has been such a struggle to make time for writing in between having two jobs, having a clingy boyfriend and wasting precious hours in traffic. Now I am just elated that, albeit long overdue, I am finally writing again! So here's a story of how two weeks ago, I celebrated my birthday in a farm.
During the last week of the month of July, I busied myself searching for a different place to spend my birthday weekend. I considered Tagaytay first but being a south girl all my life, I've already been there tens of times and the hotels are becoming unreasonably expensive. I widened my search parameters and laid eyes on the northern area and that's when I stumbled upon blogs recommending this unfrequented place in Lubao, Pampanga called Prado Farms.
Before we get to the Prado Farms experience, let me just tell a quick back story. I planned to go there with my family but I realized that this year, our family has grown bigger. Not just individual mass but I mean new family members were added within just one year. My younger brother now has my sister-in-law and Baby Raffy on the way, and of course, I can't celebrate my birthday without Ram. The eight of us can't fit in our family vehicle anymore so we had to borrow a van from Ram's parents-- which led to our parents meeting much earlier than we had planned. We've been together for only 7 months so we were a bit nervous but thankfully it was a smooth casual encounter and now that the pressure of our families meeting is out of the way, we have one thorn out of our chest on our journey to a life together. If or when it happens- this we constantly pray for.
So after a 2-hour drive from QC (including a 20-min stopover somewhere along NLEX), we reached Prado Farms.
Prado Farms is a 5-hectare farm which according to our tour guide is owned by a family of architects who like to collect antique items. Only 1 hectare of the land has been developed thus far but it is evident in the materials they use that they follow a theme.
Old and broken chairs mounted up the ceiling at the lobby
Old and rusty LPG tanks welded to form a huge gate
The hacienda looks like an artistic junkyard but nowhere near trashy-looking. Major props to the curators of this place because who knew old and rusty materials can be turned into beautiful artforms and make an entire place of lush greenery and screams art on its own? They offer day tour and overnight stay at the hotel but since it is quite creepy-looking, we opted for the day tour. The rate is at Php 1,250/head + 10% service charge. However, they don't accept walk-in guests so you have to shoot them an email or message them on Facebook for inquiries and reservation. They will ask you to deposit 50% of the total to confirm your booking. The package includes morning/afternoon snacks, lunch buffet, short tour and use of hacienda facilities.
Blue House Dining Area
The tour starts at 10am and we were led to the Blue House where we had our morning snacks.
Prado Farms only serves organic food. They grow their own vegetables and even raise their own arugula-fed pigs.
The tour guide will give you a brief background and history of the place, show you where everything is located and then you can pretty much go on your own. The hacienda is not that big so you can actually roam around on foot or use a bicycle.
They have old bicycles all over the hacienda but there is another option.
You may request for a carabao ride. Free of charge!
Main swimming pool
Our biggest regret of the trip was not bringing swimwear. They have a really nice swimming pool and jacuzzi and following the au naturel theme, they make use of salt water with very minimal chlorine. There was barely anyone around and we could have had the entire pool area to ourselves. :(
Interiors of the Blue House
The yellow house which houses the library
The place is utterly instagram-worthy. It's one of the most photogenic places I've been to considering most of the structures don't really look that neat when you're in there. Almost everything is old but the camera undoubtedly loves every corner of this farm.
The all-organic lunch buffet
Lunch was served at 1am at the lobby of their hotel. Before we went here, I warned my family that we would be eating organic food and everyone prepared themselves for a "diet meal" but to our surprise it was actually sumptuous. We loved everything from the brown rice, salad, adobong kangkong, organic pork, kamote tops juice and gabi ice cream made with carabao milk! Gabi ice cream that tastes good, guys!!! Great food that's also healthy. Now I know why organic food is more expensive.
We got exhausted after biking and walking around plus it rained after lunch so we maximized our stay by resting the whole afternoon before having late meryenda. They have what they call the siesta room- a huge air-conditioned common room with small beds and couches where day guests could rest. And yes, they have wifi! We left at around 5pm since since without swimming, there was really nothing much left for us to do. They have not yet fully developed the place so I'm hoping to come back once they have built more structures and amenities.
Thank you for the unique experience, Prado Farms!
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