hike all you can - making the most out of Sagada

i owe it to my legs having survived my Sagada trip. the normal tours already have a lot of legwork required but we(with my colleagues Jon and Nicole) went beyond that and tired ourselves with walking distances that we could have traveled easily with a vehicle.

i took the Banaue route to get to Sagada. it was the right choice doing so because the mountain ranges of Cordillera were spectacular, especially the ones while on the way from Banaue to Bontoc. the morning fog hovering the mountains was such a pretty sight. and the Banaue Rice Terraces was what i was really looking forward to get a glimpse of and yes, i saw it. finally! (though it didn't impress me that much)

Jon and Nicole traveled from Baguio, so i just met them in Sagada. we were fortunate to have tagged Nicole along with us because it's her hometown, so instead of checking in at an inn, we just stayed in one of her relatives' houses. we had to go to that house first to drop our things. right then was the first of the many long walks we had. it was high noon and Nicole didn't know where the house was. we had to ask the locals for directions and we were led to walk Sagada's main road, narrow passages which  made us feel like we're in a maze, and then a farm.

part of the farm that we had to traverse going back and forth to the house we stayed in. at night,
it's so dark it feels like you're inside a planetarium with thousands of stars vividly shining in the sky.
photo by Jon Calumpit

our first tour was the Cave Connection, so-called because you enter one cave(Lumiang Cave) and then exit through another one(Sumaguing Cave). one thing we missed before this was stretching. getting ourselves through small spaces between rocks, it surely brought out the gymnasts in us. every step was vital especially in parts where it's just total darkness next to us. you miss one step and it's your life's end. lol. with that, the adrenaline rush really felt good especially with the sight of wonderful rock formations. when we were out, we hiked again going to the town proper until another group with a jeepney let us ride with them.

spelunking on the go. it wasn't obvious that Jon was enjoying. so not obvious...

after taking a freezing cold bath, we rested for the night and woke up before sunrise the next day. at 4:30am, we began hiking all the way to Kiltepan Peak. it was very dark. no street lights. people were still asleep. our map was just Nicole's childhood memories of the place. but God is good, we made it all the way up there. not quite sure about my two colleagues, but that hike was the most tiring part of the trip for me. on the other hand, it's my most favorite part because i never expected it-- wandering in an unfamiliar place while braving the cold and the dark. and when we were up there and able to see the sun going up on the horizon, i told myself the struggle paid off. seeing the sunrise is always refreshing for me-- reminds me that life always has something new to offer.

Saoirse Ronan, is that you? getting emo in Kiltepan. hehe.

our last stop was the Pongas Waterfalls. i was expecting this to be the most challenging tour because of blog reviews i read prior. so i did some stretching and really conditioned myself for the difficult trek, accordingly. but i guess the bloggers set my expectations too high that when we got there, we're like "that's it?" our tour guide commented we're too "maliksi", reason why we didn't have a hard time. haha. the falls, to be honest were not that spectacular to me. maybe because the water that time was less due to the summer. but i love its form. because it's in a really rocky part of the mountains, the falls flow beautifully from one level to another.

my own version of "i'm the king of the world!" haha.

our minor tours include our visit to the Rock Inn where we pampered ourselves(just this one time during the whole trip) with a delightful breakfast as we were just resorting to cup noodles for our meals to save money, and to the Echo Valley and Hanging Coffins where we treated ourselves to a free tour as we were tailing a group who's got a tour guide with them. haha. with all this budgeting tactics, i was able to save a lot and it's a good thing because i got myself a massage when i got back home. hehe.

Sagada is a different experience for me. aside from its being very close to nature, it has some very interesting characteristics about its people and way of life(which i will blog in another post). Sagada, the long bus rides, the endless treks, the shivers, and the fasting, you made it all worth it.