Hi guys, my name is Alvin, I´m your tour organizer. I was born in Jan.7, 1971. In  2008  we started Alvin´s Mt. Pinatubo Guesthouse & Tours and since then we brought  hundreds of guests up to crater lake.

As i grew up i already have an idea about the names of mountains in my surroundings. Mt Pinatubo is one of them. But i don´t remember him telling me that it´s a volcano. I guess they don´t have an idea back then. It was only later that we learned that it´s a volcano when our government bore holes on it and i think they were trying to convert it into a geothermal energy. The project was abandoned. The 5 holes now looked like chimneys.
Sometime around 1990 we used to have a pumice stone warehouse near Mt. Pinatubo (about 7km away) because my father works with the aborigines and we bought the stones from the aborigines.

During that time Pinatubo is already some kind of activity. There will be minor eartquakes/eruptions from time to time.
And i remember few months before the eruption my father told me to  help in evacuating the aborigines (using SARAO jeepney) who are living close to pinatubo. In June 15, 1991 the eruption of the century happened. It literally blew apart sending ash and rocks into the air 40km up and 300 m of the summit lost. Afterward a typhoon came and the situation got worse. I remember my father was on top of the roof with a shovel clearing mud, otherwise the roof will collapse.

Lost lives, lost property , lost livelihoods, but the most affected were the aborigines because it took some years before they can go back to their villages. There were no suitable land to grow crops again, which is their source of food and livelihood.

But now what Pinatubo have taken, it’s giving back because of the tourist coming in. GOD is good! The locals, even the aborigines, were given chances to be guides for tourists who want to experience Pinatubo Trekking and explore its surrounding environs.

I don’t want to keep you reading for too long, so I’ll stop now and hope that our videos and photos will generate enough interest in you for this destination, so that I can meet you in person someday.

See you soon
Your Alvin