Sagada, Mountain Province

Sagada, a small town in Mountain Province. This is one of my "Dream Places", actually at first I have no idea of the things that I'll be seeing, I just want to be there just to experience the peaceful place I've been reading in books. What I thought was a peaceful retreat turned out to be the most adventurous trip I had. 

DAY 1

7:30 in the evening we left Manila, my trip became more exciting because I'm travelling with my friends. We are all sleeping in the bus all throughout the evening so that we can save our energy for the next days activity (Take note it's a 12 hour ride). We reach Mt. Polis at around 7:00 am and stop for a few sip of coffee, I'm not a coffee drinker but due to the cold temperature I was super delighted to have at least a cup.

Stop-over at Mt. Polis, here we are given enough time so we were able to explore the area and take some photos.

At around 8:30 in the morning we arrive in Sagada. We checked-in at a very cozy lodge were we can cook our own meals. We ate our breakfast, rest for a few hours and prepared for our trip.

What I like in the lodges in Sagada are the unique walls that are made from local logs. It gave us a very relaxing and homey feeling.

After lunch we toured around town. Here you can observe the simple life of the natives of Sagada.

One of the things that caught our attention was the old abandoned house. It looks scary but you can see the beauty of the architecture.

Another amazing stuff are the dogs that scattered around the area, they were very tame and sometimes they follow tourist in trekking the mountains. 

St. Mary's Episcopal church, it made us feel like we were not in the Philippines but somewhere in Great Britain complete with the cold weather and surrounding trees.

We choose to end our town tour by trying the famous Lemon Pie, we were super satisfied with the pie and the matching local mountain tea.

Because we are in big group we prefer to prepare our our meals and eat together, as always eating is the best bonding.

DAY 2

The following day we woke up early to prepare for the much awaited Sumaguing Cave Exploration. 

We prefer to walk going to the caves instead of riding a jeep, the entire surrounding was very fresh and a good exercise is  what we need with all the stuffs that we ate.

 

Walking also gave us the chance to have more time for picture taking :)

Finally we arrived at the mouth of the cave from here I can already feel the fear that I'm keeping, I realized that I can do all the crazy stuffs that concerned heights but if  I am in a closed area like this cave I feel like I am slowly losing my courage.  

It was a difficult and slippery trek inside but there are guides who gave us lights and help us along the way.

There were even small areas were we need to crawl for us to finish the spelunking.

Slowly I was able to conquer my fear and enjoy our adventure.

We have some stops to take picture and rest :)

To my surprise, there is even rappelling inside the cave.

It was a very tiring adventure but we all went out with a smile on our faces :)

This time we didn't cook for our lunch, there is a local wedding happening outside the lodge were we stayed and they invited us to join them for lunch. After lunch we rest for a while and after an hour we start to continue our tour in the rest of the town.

 Here we got the chance to ride on top of the jeepney :0

 

 First we visited Bokong Falls or the small falls

Next we visited Sagada Weaving a place where you can see how they make the famous weaved items.

We also passed by a local pottery shop.

One of the interesting sights in Sagada is the Local Cemetery, this is a modern cemetery but they have a special tradition during Halloween where they lit up a small fire beside the grave and then the cemetery will look like a burning hill.

We continued our tour by trekking. We visited Echo Valley and Hanging Coffins.

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 For the finale we tried the Famous yogurt of Sagada. 

We thought that our day ended but when the night comes we heard sounds coming outside. We went out of curiosity and found out that there is a party happening in relation to the wedding feast we attended during lunch time. Of course we didn't miss the opportunity and join the party.  

It was not the typical party we have in Manila, or in the entire Philippines, it was a traditional party of the natives of mountain province. 

What made this trip special was the company of my loving friends. It can never be as fun as what we had.

DAY 3

Time for us to go home but the fun never stops. We can finally say "I Survived SAGADA"

Till our next trip :)

For an adventure you will never forget you may contact:
Shaikha Travel and Tours Co.
Tel No: 02-4859696/ 02-5459977
Mobile: 09175928601
email: shaikha_travel@yahoo.com