Uhh.. not exactly conquered all of it though, but we made it!

The explorers:

Kremme, Joan , James and Jeri

Our mission:

Nahhh… nothin specific.. We’re lost kids and we dont really know whats waitin for us in Sagada.

The Travel:

Manila to Baguio – ( 5 to 6 hours)  Our bus left at  around 10:30 pm. Just to share, before leavin’ ,  I went to a nearby 7-eleven to buy chips and hotdog,  and I just found out they are no longer selling cigarettes to 25 yrs old and under unless you show them a valid ID? Seriously eh..

Baguio to Sagada-  (6 hours or so ) The road was pretty toxic . If youre the type who gets motion sickness during long hours of travel, bring meds with you otherwise you’d be throwin’ up all the way. But when traveling to Sagada, I’d say get ur favorite music playin while enjoying the view outside.  I brought my Psp that time so as not to get bored.

We reached Sagada at around 1 o clock  in the afternoon the following day.

The Lodge:

George Guesthouse. Its like 100 meters  away from the Sagada Municipal Hall.

The Food:

There werent too many nice restaurants in Sagada . I mean , I was expecting it’d be like Baguio where you’d see veggies and fruits scattered everywhere and the restaurants would serve like Jumbo meals for a really low cost. Most restaurants served the usual tapsilog, cornsilog, porksilog and all that breakfast stuff for the same rate as in Manila.

We, however, found out that there exist a restaurant called… “Yoghurt House!!!!”

Ahh my god.. Their food is just impossibly good! I just ordered Fried rice with veggies and I was surprised of what I got, I was about to tell the fellahs” Hey guys, dya’  order this?” coz what I thought would look like a plain chao-fan is brown rice stuffed with green and purple veggies , it looked like a mini-garden.  And the place too is a winner! The interior’s made of natural wood with photos of natives hanging in the wall  mixing the traditional with the modern, simple yet complex, giving a truly ethnic feel.

The People:

The locals are really silent people. They smile once in a while but theyre not the type you can joke around with.

We had a funny encounter with an old lady when we were tryin to ask for directions . Jeri spoke to her in  Tagalog language and the old lady respond in English, with all fluency and no accent . Boy. I was lookin at Jeri, she got tongue-tied. We were like technically, .. lost for words .. kind of smitten. We werent expecting that either, until we found out their second language is actually English.. Coool ei??

The Adventures:

Echo Valley -  this is the most accessible spot. Visiting this wouldnt require you a tour guide. We didnt even hire one, we just followed the Sagada map, trekked along with other tourists, and there you are .. Echo valley. Before getting there though,we passed along their famous St. Mary’s Episcopal Church and a cemetery.. The road goin to Echo Valley is a lil bit scary, scary since you’d see tombstones everywhere, but its literally scary coz you’d pass thru cliffs and rocks, and if you have a fear of heights, you’d die in an instant. *just kiddin* yea. I was extremely careful that time. If you tripped once , ur very unlucky. We saw a picture of a foreign guy embossed in a large rock near the cliff, we asked one local who he was and we were told that he was a tourist who fell off the cliff and died..

Walk to Kiltepan and Rocky Inn ( The orange farm)- The most exhausting part of the trip coz we hiked non-stop for around 4 hours under the scorching heat of the sun. My legs were already shaking . In Kiltepan, we’re supposed to view the early morning sunrise but were a  lil’ too late for that so we thought of just viewing the terraces.. It was too exhausting but when we got there, the place is heaven , the breeze, the view, the smell of pine trees, the silence .. everything, as if they work together to create a perfect ambiance. If you wanna go soul searching, or u wanna go emo, try this spot.

Sumaging Cave – This place is totally exciting. Ive never done anything my entire life like what we did inside the Sumaging cave.

In the cave opening, you’d see the hanging coffins.  We asked our tour guide why their ancestors hang the coffins, its coz they had this belief that hanging the coffins allows the spirits of the dead to roam around the earth. Hmm.. Makes sense.

This is one place where you have to have your adrenaline workin  coz the passages are very tricky, one wrong step and you might end up with a leg injury. There are no soft landing, just rocks.  Which is why I wouldnt wonder why the locals do not allow tourists to get inside without a guide.

We’ve passed thru holes, walked through pools of water with temperature near freezing point. God, I was freezing like crazy when we passed thru a waist-deep pool. There were different rock formations too. Our tour guide ” Kuya Ben” told us funny stories about them. He was very entertaining.

We left Sagada the following day at around 8 in the morning. Made a stop over in Baguio and bought some goodies.

Whoa.. Im still not getting over how glorious the place was. And the experience.. ahhhh.. its Epic!!