My Baguio-Sagada-Banaue Roadtrip!

It's been a while since I made my last blog. Now, I am up to making more of my past adventures and experiences. This time let me share you my experience in Sagada alongside with Baguio and Banaue last February with my friends.

At the Baguio City Heritage Hill and Prayer Mountain

I am very excited for it is my first time to visit Sagada! I went on different field trips wayback in college but I missed going to this place! Finally I had the chance and it was great!  We rented a van in our whole three-day adventure. Since I am coming from Quezon City and they will be from our hometown, Echague Isabela, we decided that our rendezvous is at Baguio City where one of our batchmates is staying.  I boarded the Victory Liner Bus bound to Baguio. It was a long trip and I spent 80% of the time sleeping. It was a short stay in Baguio for we really want to spend most of the time in Sagada. We had a little stroll to the famous Our Lady of Lourdes Grotto and had a walk to the Baguio City Heritage Hill and Prayer Mountain.

The best Loyung's Rice

After some sight seeing in Baguio, we made our way straight to Sagada. It was an awesome and tiring 8 hour travel from Bagiuo to Sagada. It was 4am when we departed from Baguio and since we haven't had breakfast yet, we need to stop at one of the few restaurants on the way. It was already 9am when we finally found a restaurant in Atoc, Benguet. This was the first we had spotted and since we are all hungry, we had no other choice but to fill our rumbling stomach. But this resto offered us more than what we are craving for. The group's favorite since lauriat came to life! It's more than just a simple and delectable dish boasted with fine ingredients. A quarter chicken, porkchop, chopseuy and a cup of huge rice topped with egg represents Loyung's rice! The best lauriat in town which will only cost you 85 pesos. This is a great discovery of the group which made us really full! An energizer for the long day to power us in our adventures later.

The Philippine Pali: 7200 masl

 On the way to Sagada, as we pass through the province of Benguet was the highest point in the Philippines. It's called the "Philippine Pali" with an elevation of 7200 meters above sea level along the Philippine Highway System. We had a quick stopover here to have some picture taking. Just to document our way. It's getting cooler and cooler as we move towards Sagada. What would we expect? Elevation is getting higher in here! And there are times where fog is so thick that it is nearly zero visibility. The natural air is cooler than the aircon of the car so we just let our windows open to feel the cool air but sometimes we can't just stand the cold so we shut the windows close..haha But to show that we are not affected much by the cool weather, we had a topless shot along the way! Just to stir people in vehicles passing the highway. To had their attention in us and we did it! They blow their horns and cheered for us!

Who says it's cold in here?

The road to Sagada is still under construction. You will feel the typical countryside living but will feel thrilled by the breath-taking sceneries! We just don't make it obvious but we are sometimes wary of the deep ravines just at the edge of the road! Just one single maneuver mistake and there you are! More than a thousand meters down under! It was scary but we just ignored it and enjoyed the cool breeze and the verdant sceneries. All we see are mountains and terraces and some houses. There are parts of the road which as concrete and other parts are just ordinary ones that creates a lot of dust!

Welcome to Sagada!

 Upon arriving to Sagada, a lot of tourists and local people flocked the municipal hall for registration. Stalls are also seen with all the different food, accessories, souvenirs and a lot more to offer. There are also emergency preparedness team around just in case there are circumstances of untoward incidents. Of course the community police is present for security and peace and order to remain. i myself is very eager to start the adventure in the area. But being the (self-declared) leader of the group, I need to radiate the excitement although the group is already tired of the long trip. it's good the group are also energetic and excited just like me. Some had been to the place but they are still very young that time. This time, they are ready for greater adventures and had no worries.We then had a litte briefing in the registration area, paid the registration fee of 25 pesos each. The tourist information officer said that the reg fee is for the maintenance of cleanliness in the area. But when we spoke to the receptionist in the guest house we are to rent, she said that it is not required to pay for some registration since there's nothing to maintain. And so, we just treated the reg fee as an entrance fee to Sagada since the payment has been made already. They are also offering tour guide services which are at reasonable prices and can be asked for discounts unlike the fixed tour fees in the municipal hall. After some talks and negotiations on the price of the lodge and some tips from the receptionist,we had our things settled in the guest house and relaxed a bit for the upcoming adventures! We had a few minutes of rest and prepared our getaway.

The hanging coffins 

The tour has been set to start! It's good we had our own car in case we need to travel long distances. This will save travel time as well as the cost of renting transport which will surely cut our budget for the trip! On the way to the cave, our tour guides showed us the hanging coffins which are very precious in terms of historical value. We had a little stop over and used the provided binoculars by the roadside to see some hanging coffins just by the road. Of course, we didn't just have a distant look at the coffins. We went down at one part of the cave to see more of what they say hanging burial boxes. As what I remember, until today or just recently there are still people who have the dead bodies of their relatives in the cave. i just don't remember exactly the date. I'll just ask our tour guide once more when I get back to Sagada!haha It was just a short view of the coffins. We then get back to the car and went on to the take off point towards Sumaging.

And there we are at the Sumaguing caves! It was a two hour spelunking experience! Our guides are quick and humorous. They warn us of the deadly spots but they themselves walks through those deadly ones! We are amazed how quick they transfer from one rock to another without even caring to hold onto something for support. One thing more, they are wearing the typical beach walk slippers alone which might be very slippery! They just laugh at us as we move inch by inch, careful of our steps and strides. The reason they are that fast and carefree is because the cave has been their playground since childhood. They know everything about the cave, the stories and all other experiences that they share us. They are experienced enough and they are quite good in the history and all other stories they tell us. The magnificent rock formations in the caves are very captivating. But most of the formations are no longer alive. Crystal formations are no longer that prolific but they are still good looking.

Before entering the cave

Some photos below are magnificent limestone formations found inside the Sumaguing Cave. The stories and humor about those formations are quite thrilling and will tickle your funny bone!hehe The one just below this text is called the Turtle (if I remember it right) which is hiding in its shell. You really have to stoop and have your face touch down to see if it is really like a turtle. And it was!

Turtle Back

Another magnificent limestone formation is called "The Prince". I'll leave to your creative imagination the explanation or reason why it is called by its name. A tip I can share is that you need to study the parts of a male body and have a "wild" imagination to figure out why.hehe

The Prince

One more limestone formation below. If we have a prince, we also have a princess! So as to have a pair. Now, you don't need to have that "wild" imagination since it's pretty obvious why it was called by its name. Our tour guides are really funny and had our grin up to the ears while listening to their educational reasonings on such formations.

The Princess

Another limestone formation that made us more hungry is the gigantic cake in the photo below. One of the guides asked who among us will be celebrating his birthday and most of us are born on February. I thought he will have our tour fee slashed a little but to no avail, it was a giant cake! What more can we do than just have a memory of the cake by taking a photo of it with us! What a great trick? or treat..haha

Limestone cake

There are a lot more to enjoy inside the cave. Although we are already chilling of the cold water inside, the excitement and eagerness even went up! We even had a rappelling experience in the cave! The adventure inside is really awesome.

It was a very tiring yet thrilling two-hour spelunking experience. We got wet and muddy and wet and muddy but the laughter is always there! We even tease and scare one another to add humor to the atmosphere. Of course "site seeing" at a different angle is present for we are not the only ones who are in the caves. The beautiful ladies who screams most of the time due to fear of falling serve as our inspiration and energizer too!hehe We are done with this activity in as twilight embarks. We had to go back to the guesthouse and prepare for dinner and the socials night. We went straight to the marketplace to shop for food for dinner and breakfast. Of course some alcohol to enjoy the night's coolness.

At Mam Sheryl's home at Sagada

The night is really cool although it's also cool at daytime, it's cooler as the sun show-off. It's hard to bath for long, good thing there are heaters installed. By the way, we stayed at one of the home-stay services of George guest-houses. The owner of the house, Ma'am Sheryl and her husband is really hospitable and caring just like our parents. They even do the chores in the house for us. And the house is great! Simple yet elegant. The night went on as we had group conversations sharing one's experiences especially with girls who we are courting/courted and got busted with, had a relationship with and our close friends we are with most of the time. It was a night of fun and reminiscing also while rounds of wine tag along. The group is composed of hard core snorers and the opposite. I belong to the silent sleepers but my roommate is a snorer. Good thing I was able to sleep first before he did so as not to be disturbed for once I get knocked off by dizziness, I have a long one!

The day breaks and the plan of watching the sunrise at the Kiltepan came to just a dream!hehe We need to wake up by 4am but we just slept at 2! Some woke up by 6, most of us got up by 9. We had our breakfast prepared already as we get down the kitchen. We had some conversations again discussing the funny things we did last night. We changed plans and just explored the market for some souvenirs. We also need to get off Sagada before the sunset so as not to be hard up on the way since it's foggy that we might not see the road.

The cause of traffic

We took the Banaue route which is a closer to Isabela than taking the Baguio-Manila-Isabela way which is quite a long hours trip. On the way to Banaue, we met a truck which nearly fell the cliff. The roadside is under construction for barriers and the truck carrying loads of gravel and sand nearly dropped down. It's good, a little concrete barrier has already been made in the area where it was stuck. The scene created a thirty minute pause as motorists had a long queue at both sides. We dropped by the market in Benguet to buy some souvenirs too as well as the vegetables which are fresh and very cheap compared to those in the market in the metropolis and in our province.

The way back home is very thrilling and  as well literally breath-taking. Our driver is very agitated and cool. He just go on step at the accelerator as we swerve left and right by the edge of the road. Whoa! It was as if we are at a race track! It was really breath-taking! But good enough that he managed the steering wheel well!  And that was the adventure over the first weekend of February!

Sagada, we shall return! :D