Locale: Sagada, Mountain Province
Visited: 5-7 April 2007
After a long, bumpy, tiresome trip from Manila, Sagada welcomes you with its fresh, cool pine air and its own version of the majestic rice terraces. This sleepy town is the place to meditate!
A lot has been said and written about this truly mesmerizing town. And now, I write my own.
Situated near the North West end of the Mountain Province, it is bordered by the province of Abra to the north. The municipalities of Besao, Bauko, Sabanga and Bontoc complete the borderlines of Sagada.
Sheila and I started our trek from Los Baños. We stopped by Calamba to meet with couple Jack and Noemi. They served us a heavy merienda before the four of us made our way to Manila.
From España, we boarded the AUTOBUS bound for Banaue. We left at 10:45PM and arrived in Banaue at around 7AM. We boarded a jeepney bound for Sagada (I think it costs around Php200 per head), which took us to breakfast and some sightseeing of the 8th Wonder of the World: The Banaue Rice Terraces. After a few shots and some mingling with the locals, we got along with our journey, 3 hours of it.
The climate here is refreshingly cool. I personally think it is cooler here than Baguio City. During our entire stay, it only rained once, during the first night. It was just a short drizzle (not a downpour) - the wind became chilly and the raindrops felt like ice piercing your skin!
There are a lot of activities to pass your time in this tourist-friendly locale. Eco-tourism is what first time visitors do. And being first timers ourselves (we were eight in a group), we basically followed the numerous “prescribed” itineraries we found in the net (search for Sagada in the Virtual Tourist website: http://www.virtualtourist.com). The majority of the places tourists frequent are “illustrated” below:
So now, what to do in Sagada already???
Well, after we (we were now 6, having met with two friends in Banaue) disembarked from the jeepney, we first registered ourselves at the Municipal Hall and paid the tourist fee of Php10.00 per head. There is also a table there where you can arrange for a guide (SEGA- Sagada Ecou-tourism Guides Association). They have standard rates for specific areas and activities.
After declaring ourselves tourists, we touched base with another couple who arrived one day early (damn, they got the best room!). We settled in at “Ate Janice’s Place”, claimed our own personal spaces and rested a few hours(?) before going back to the town central for some sightseeing (yes, from the town “square” itself, you can see a lot!) and souvenirs.
Anyway, easily accessible sites are the (1) Echo Valley and (2) Hanging Coffins. Going there, we first passed by St. Mary’s Episcopal Church. Walking further up, we came to the town cemetery. What’s unique is that it’s situated on an incline! It’s very fortunate for them that the land doesn’t erode when it rains! Comment: too crowded, but with very nice view of the town. After the cemetery, we alighted at Echo Valley. Pine needles make the trek a bit difficult because it doesn’t provide traction, so we had to be very careful: sliding will lead to a steep and may be fatal fall. Shouting to our heart’s content, Echo Valley religiously returned our echoes. A number of rock formations made our imaginations run: from a Labrador to Stallion and I think we even imagined an elephant!
From our spot we could already see the hanging coffins on the other “mountain.” The 24-120mm zoom lens was not that powerful enough to take a shot of see everything, though. But also on our side we saw two coffins. They were not hanging, but inside a small cave. Pictures!
(For the food part, this requires a separate entry of its own so, check my “food blog.”)
The next morning, Jed was our guide (and also for the rest of our stay). We first went to the Big Cave or the locally called the “Sumaging.” Trek time is around 40mins to 1 hour. So what to see inside? The cave is what it is called: BIG. From the road side, the cave goes down may be at least 20 floors! There was some water dripping from the cave ceiling, and when you look up, you could see (if you focus; it’s totally lights out there, except the light from the guide’s lamp) bats hanging. So when looking up, don’t open your mouth! Water dripping may contain bat urine and if you’re on a bad day, may be even bat dung!
Anyway, still going down, the cave floor is filled with bat dung, and the air smells bat dung and urine, but it’s cool! I think, your breath would fog down there! The rock formations there also turns on your imagination: a pig sty, a lady, elephant, and vegetables (or was it in Palawan that we saw vegetables?). One formation was that of a woman giving birth (well, sort of. The only thing identifiable were the thighs and the female organ!).
There was also a spring and a waterfall there. The water is refreshingly cool, and some other tourists were brave enough to weather the chill of the water (and murkiness!).
At some point during the decent, we were told to remove our footwear. Before reaching the end of the cave, Jack and I were already complaining that our soles hurt- they’ve been “sanded” by the rock formations! However, Noemi and Sheila were not complaining. I think they liked the idea of having a free foot scrub!
Back on the roadside, we had a short break by having the Sagada famous halo-halo. It’s basically the same with what we have on the lowlands but this variety contains a special extra ingredient that distinguishes it from all other halo-halo’s in the world: MACARONI NOODLES…
Off we now go to Echo Valley. Yup, we went here the previous day but now we have a guide and he has a few stories and anecdotes along the way. Also, we went to the other side (we haven’t been there yet) to have a very close look at the coffins hanging there.
After which, we went back to the other side to do rock climbing. This is the first rock climb in my whole life and it was the real thing! The guide said to use the upper body for clinging to the rock and the legs to push up! How easy it sounded! While I was up there, I was always pulling myself up, and not pushing with my legs! If there were not guide, I would have fallen to my death (or may be a few broken bones). Well, I reached the top, touched bottom and gained a few bruises, cuts, scratches and a wonderful feeling that I did it! Php100.00! And Sheila did the climb, too! Not like the other guy (faggot)! Hehehehe!
Before taking off for lunch, the group decided that we next visit another “Big”- the Bomod-ok Big Waterfalls. We had to rent one jeep going to the jump off point (yup, that far). The trip was very nice. It gave us the chance to see most of Sagada’s rice terraces. And just a few turns before the walk towards the falls, we stopped by a “view deck” to check out the sights. From where we were, the people going to the falls were as small as ants… Incredible. That was how high we were, and we ourselves were going there.
The travel was long but the beauty of the surroundings kept the tiredness far from the mind. We made frequent stops to shoot pictures of the rice fields, the locals, of ourselves. The path was paved so the chances of slipping were low, except for some loose blocks of cement.
Jed the guide was a very good guide. Along the way he picked up trash left by tourists and locals alike. He even made the kids there to pick up the trash and would pay them afterwards. Very nice guy, if you ask me.
After an hour (or so), we reached our destination: the Big Falls. Yup, it was big alright. The water rushing down wasn’t that majestic. May be it hadn’t rained that much for a while. Anyway, it was still a wonderful sight. The water was still clear and some people were swimming, again, braving the ice-cold waters.
After a few minutes of reflection, we went back to the jeep. Tsk, the hike was really tiring! Since it was getting dark, we had to hurry. And we couldn’t even get a glimpse of the scenery; adding to our tiredness… The very tiring trek made our day and we all went to bed after some rounds of whiskey.
The next day was all walk.
The Bokkong Small Waterfalls was really what it’s called: small. It was just like a small creek around 10 feet across. The falls itself was may be 12-15 feet. Since it was easily accessible (unlike the Bomod-ok), families were there cooling themselves in its cool waters. Getting there, we almost got lost, and were afraid that we might trespass somewhere and the owner might shoot us on sight!
The Kiltepan view deck could very well be the highest point in Sagada. They say there used to be a tower there, but it’s gone now! Sometimes the fog would clear up and would provide us with a nice view of the town. We loitered there a bit because, uhm, we kind of got lost going there. Going back to town, we took the looooong way back. We passed by numerous cafes but none were selling coffee! Bummer! They were offering us beer but we were almost dead tired.
Getting back to town, we started packing our stuff for we leave early the following day. We also made our last souvenir shopping for shirts, coffee, tea, and other stuff that we liked. Jack even bought a native drum!
There many more things to do in Sagada aside from what we did. You can just let the time pass by to de-stress yourself: see the mountains, the sunrise or sunset, meet the locals or eat the food that only Sagada can offer.
We’ll be back, but not that soon.
