sagada

My closest friends at the office Claren, Br and Ben plus Karen and Kim went up to Sagada last holy week March 19-23.  The trip was incredibly fun! We went hiking, climbing, spelunking… (haha, this is the ‘copy’ of my sagada tshirt) and so much more. I’m really happy I’ve come across Ms Violeta’s online ad just in time! plus we got to join this very energetic group of touristas (JL, Monica, Clarisse, Cristina, JayPee, Andre, Dororthy, Sally to name a few).

St. Joseph’s Inn was nice. We got 3 rooms for our group, ours has a really nice view (named Simon Peter). Every night we had a room party which actually equates to 1 shot of tequila each, group games (which are a bit noisy) and photo "reviews", Karen had her laptop with her and so we transferred all the day’s photos at night to be criticized and laughed at. We had over 6 CDs of photos! It was a lotttt but still felt much was left unphotographed.

First day - we went to Echo Valley, Calvary Hills and the Hanging Coffins a few hours after we arrived at the inn - - - lots of nice places - St. Mary’s Church, Old bell, endless fields of greens, spooky cemetery  and the like. Then we met with Mama and Ate Cindy (yup they were also incidentally in a different inn at Sagada) at Yogurt’s House to have dinner. Found a shop with strappy sandals branded as Shark  which we needed for the following day’s cave adventure.

Second day - first stop was the small falls - bit of a walk -  but still fun - lots of photo ops along the way - went to Kiltepan after - my personal favorite! The view was literally and figuratively breathtaking. Sir Emir was right, mountain tops kissing bubblegum clouds was wow. It must be a joy to wake up everyday to this kind of view. My friends and I swore that we’ll go back to Kiltepan someday and camp to be able to catch even a minute of this. Heaven. Sumaguing Cave was next - - - definitely a physical challenge but fun just the same. It was holy week so the cave was crowded than usual - long lines and sort of slow pace - but wasn’t something we’d complain as first timers - mas okay since naging less spooky yung cave because of people chatter and we got to explore cave spots twice as long. We went out all muddy and restless but it was all worth it.

Third day - Falls day! The Big Falls lived up to its name. I felt like crying when we finally saw the oasis.  We transversed rice fields, steep trails, passed by an authentic Ifugao village and a lot of unbelievably beautiful sceneries to get there. How’s that difficult? The difficult part was going back *and this isn’t a sentimental line* I don’t even have the words for it but it seems like I have done a year’s worth of leg activity climbing back. Grabe talaga! It was good that there were waiting sheds to faint on to (hehe).  Third night was tequila group night! Sobrang laugh trip. A single high pitch "no" was all we needed to crack up (hehe).

Fourth day - attended the Easter Service at St. Mary’s. The priest’s homily was alternately Ilocano - English, it was nice and solemn. Then we had our last minute shopping at the Sagada shops - we bought our friendship bracelet. Bontoc Stop, our group had a mini concert - JL on lead, BR on drums, Ben on Base, Andre and any other person on vocals (hehe). We had a blast. Only bad thing that happened was the bus broke down, we had to transfer twice and from 3am ETD we arrived at Manila at 830am. Good thing, I was on leave that Monday.

Highlights in photos.

It was 4 days and 3 nights but still sagada felt too quick and manila way too soon. Hope time is immaterial when you’re on vacation - - - could that ever be possible?