"roughing it" at Sagada

I’ve always wanted to go to Sagada so I’m glad that my new officemates are travel-hungry like I am and decided to go there last January. It was a long weekend so we took an overnight bus to Banaue to grab breakfast then go to Sagada via a hired jeep. I rarely board sleeper buses because it is really tiring since you don’t get any “real” sleep during the ride, and I get paranoid about drivers driving for long durations in the middle of the night. Nonetheless, the bus trip was eventful, two European backpackers got on board and were unable to secure seats so they literally claimed the aisle. Claimed as in they are sprawled on their backs on the bus floor (and these are tall dudes) sleeping while the rest of the passengers manoeuvre over their legs and stuff to leave the bus when it stops for food/CR breaks. Sadly we weren’t able to take a picture because they are right next to our seats. I saw some passengers at the back taking pictures of them. That’s really roughing it out, backpacker style.

We arrived at Sagada around lunchtime the next day, and rested for a bit before spelunking at the Sumaguing Cave. Since we’re going on tipid mode, we didn’t hire any transportation to move us around so it was quite a walk to the cave (and our tour guide made a side trip to another cave so that cost us time but the trek was also interesting). By the time we arrived at the cave, it was almost 5pm and we were among the last groups to enter.

group shot!
It was my first time to go spelunking and I LOVE it, thanks to the bloggers out there who managed my expectations and prepared me (in terms of gear) for the trip. It was a blast given that it was 10 girls in our group, and you have no choice but to cling for dear life and plaster your face against the rocks despite the bat poop since you can just as easily fall to Hades in one moment. If there’s one thing I learned, spelunking is not for the rebellious types, listen to your guide as he will tell you the positions to use while going down the cave and which direction to take. Since I wanted to milk the most out of the experience, we agreed to the suggestion of our guide to go further than the traditional route (he asked if it’s okay to get wet). So we traversed some ropes, and went down to the pool of water (I was the sacrificial lamb most of the time since I’m at the start of the line), and saw way better stalactites, stalagmites, and fossils than the earlier route. Thank God I’m not claustrophobic, or at least I didn’t had any panic attack since we all have headlights.

squeeze!!!

We were clearly wiped out afterwards but had to wake up ready the next day for another day of let’s-see-how-much-my-body-can-take session. We rode a jeep then walk through the terraces to go to Bokong Falls. It was another first for me to take a terrace-laden route to see a waterfall, so I enjoyed it despite the fact that it was already past 10am and the heat is killing me. We arrived at the Falls and stayed for a while to cool down. Too bad none of us brought stuff for swimming. It would have been heavenly to swim after the trek. The climb (I’m saying climb since we trekked up along the terraces) was even more eventful given that it’s 1pm and we had to catch the jeep going back to the town. That severely tested my endurance given the heat and that we’re in a hurry. We weren’t able to catch the jeep back (because of an accident which made the trip back more eventful), so we had to ride on top of one of the jeeps that another group hired to take us back to town.

bundled up in my blue jacket despite the heat

 

Now, I ‘ve ridden on top of jeepneys before but this trip was crazy since all I was seeing on my side are all gorges. We had to sit facing the side (instead of the front) since there are a lot of us at the roof. Wow, my friend and I were plain fearful for certain moments definitely especially when there are bumps on the mountainside road and I couldn’t see any landing right beneath me. I didn’t know whether to be ecstatic at the sheer adventurism of it all or just shrink out of fear. Hilariously we decided to have a late lunch at the famous –yogurt, so the visitors lounging at the balcony of the place are just eye level with us when the jeep stopped.

on top of the jeep

We rested for a while and then went out again to see the echo valley and the hanging coffins. It was another laborious trek down and back up again to see the coffins (literally 90% going down with little foothold). Suffice to say, everyone was more concerned about our friend scratching her pricey camera than our lives, lol. The coffins were interesting and offered a different dimension to our trip. We also spent a lot of time looking at the amazing view from the echo valley and took a lot of pictures (the trees and the mountain ranges make a fascinating backdrop).

 

going down!!!

echo valley

And for our last day in Sagada, we were not content with just buying pasalubong then make the long trip back to Metro Manila. We woke up at 5am to make a trek to the peak of Mt. Ampacao. It’s another one of those why-the-hell-are-we-doing-this? moments, but reaching the top (or well, the bottom of the peak) was another amazing experience given the fog and the spectacular view. We hurriedly went down since we have to catch the earliest bus going to Baguio, but our guide had this twisted view of giving us a more unique experience by going on another route down the mountain. Let’s just say there was a lot of tripping, shrub/plant/branch swiping, sliding, and countless views of gorges the way down.

mt. ampakaw

By the time we got back to our place, we barely had time to freshen up and pack before undergoing the five hour trip to Baguio (ahem, wet wipes). To our dismay, almost all the early trips going to Baguio are full. Thankfully, a group of Koreans had extra seats in their hired van and offered to split the bill with us. So four of us went on the van while the rest got on a bus (there wasn’t a bus who can take all 10 of us). Obviously I was one of those in the van because of the Korean element. I just tried hard not to show my eagerness during the trip, hehe.

chinggus! hahaha

Arrived at Baguio late afternoon and again there aren’t any early buses going back to Manila. We hired a van to take us back and arrived in Manila on Monday past midnight and are back to the office 7 hours later.
Whenever someone asks me about my Sagada trip, I always tell them that if you want to get closer to God, better go there. I can’t remember how many times I prayed in my mind while having that devil-may-care gleam in my eye as we went through one death-defying (at least to my standards) adventure to another. I would gladly go there again even if just for the spelunking. I rarely go North so this is another stop to go back whenever the time (and the energy) allows it.