since i went through a major break up this year, i wanted to make sure i spend a lot of time for myself. i made sure my summer would be worth remembering more than that incident.where have i been these past few months?
i was just going to write a very short description of sagada, but see, i loved the place and decided to write this whole thing about my experience.
i went to sagada with 3 of my closest office friends. Yes, that's right. Me, erwin, aldo and raul. we planned our leaves but we didn't plan where to go. we decided to go to sagada days before we actually left. good thing i have connections who helped us find the perfect guide who helped us find a place to sleep and toured us around the rustic village and the dark caves.
we took the long way, a bus trip to baguio from 5 am to 12 noon,then another bus ride from baguio to sagada which took 6 hours. the road winds around the mountain. on one side all you'll see are cliffs, the other side, well, mountain. it was a welcome sight after all the billboards, the shanties and other garbage in the metro.
when we reached sagada at around 6 pm, it was really dark. i thought they didn't have road lights but it turned out to be a black out. haha. we went to eat at salt and pepper and had our first taste of the native's hospitality.
on our second day, we embarked on a spelunking expedition to sumaguing cave. it was, i guess more than 100 feet down, so it was really scary traversing the sometimes rocky, sometimes muddy with guano, sometimes wet earth. when we descended my companions left me in the middle of the path because the next part was chest high deep water. turned out the water there might get polluted with my menstruation. hehehe. so i spent 30 minutes waiting on a rock, smoking and staring at the darkness waiting for them to get back. it was scary not because i was thinking of lamang lupa and such, but i thought there would be snakes and bats. anyway, i got out of it alive so no biggie. :)
it took us half a day to do that. our guide, kuya John, saw that we seemed not to be fazed by the trek, told us that we will go visit the falls in the afternoon. so after lunch, we headed to Aguid, where we hiked for almost an hour to get to the Bomod-ok falls. the trail snakes through the rice terraces and goes on and on and on. since i did have my period that time my IBS attacked. good thing kuya john knows a lot of the people there and i took advantage of their toilet. bwahahaha!
anyways, it was a little disappointing that the falls during that time was not in full blast. of course i didn't dip in the water. it was really really cold. and there were a lot of people bathing and having their foot massaged. after the trek, it was a good thing our landlady, or auntie, prepared delicious food for us.
the next day was spent seeing the sights near the town proper. we went to the church, which was really really quaint. it made me think of going back there to get married. CHOS!
we also went to echo valley, which is just a bit of hike. kuya john said to shout all my anger away and it'll echo back to me. i tried shouting 'putangina ka harvey!' but apparently i lacked conviction and i didn't hear any echo. see, i'm not really angry. we also saw some hanging coffins, which are, by the way, eerie. and tried a bit of pottery. i successfully made an ashtray, and i fully intend to get it there. i will be back.
there were still a lot of places we didn't see. since we lack budget and time. i'm sure there'll be next time. looking at the pics every now and then make me want to go back there more. oh well, im sure i'll get the chance one day someday. we spent only 3 days there, it was tiring but worth every penny. :) definitely a place i'll go back to, again and again.
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