My Accidental Trip To Sagada
My first trip to Sagada was an accidental one. My travel buddy (Dominic) and I are actually planning to visit Baguio since Dominic haven’t been there so I thought that it’d be a cool idea to just go there and get ourselves a much needed break from everything that’s in the city (work, work work that is.) About a week before our scheduled trip, Dominic suddenly suggested Sagada which I have heard before and the thought of going there made me so giddy right away. I’ve been dying to go there but I just never had the resource of time. I thought to myself, “Now is the time to do this! Yay” Right away, we search the net for everything we could learn about Sagada and man’ 99% of what’s written about it made me even more excited. I just can’t wait to go there.
picture taking at one of the stop overs in Banaue 🙂
At S. Joseph Inn aka St.Joseph Resthouse
Also known as St. Joseph Resthouse.
History has it that St.Joseph used to be a convent and was converted into a resthouse.
I Just want to say that we truly enjoyed our stay in Sagada and staying at St.Joseph Inn was just as great. We arrived at around nine in the morning and immediately checked-in paying P500/night – we chose to stay at the dormitory because it’s way cheaper (their cheapest actually) than the private rooms with private restrooms. We’re okay with a shared restroom anyways, since we’d only be staying in town for like 2 nights.
I actually loved our room. It was very clean and very comfortable. You have to go to the dormitory’s receiving room to use the power socket if you’ve need something with electric current LOL (in our case, our camera, cellphones and laptop.)
You can see the shared washroom at the background
The restroom/bathroom are okay. There’s a separate restroom for male and female but we actually used both since we’re the only visitors when we arrived (and 3 European guys when we left.)
Dominic checking the garden
The dormitory was actually a bit creepy because it was so eerily quiet! But that adds up to the adventure. They also have a restaurant just outside the inn but we didn’t eat there because we’d like to explore more and it doesn’t look appetizing at all since no one seems to be eating there…
just fooling around.
Dominic and I had a lovely stay at the inn. I just wished back then that we’ve more company 🙂
To contact the inn – call / text at 09185595934
At Yoghurt House
It’s a two story establishment and this is the second floor of it 🙂 Cozy huh?
The Yoghurt House was perfection for us. We loved every bit of it! We love their hospitality, the vibe of the place, the entrée and ofcourse – its yoghurt!
Here’s the sumptuous lunch that we ordered. I’m overwhelmed by the big servings!
We went here for lunch immediately after unpacking our stuff at St. Joseph. It was glorious! We ordered Garden Salad with Tuna, Pancake, Sauteed Beef in Onions and Rice, Two Mountain Teas (uber awesome) and two Banana, Granola, Strawberry Preserves Yoghurt! –that’s just for lunch and everything seems to be good for two!!!!
I am a tea lover and this mountain tea’s amazing!
Banana, Granola, Strawberry Preserves Yoghurt – Now you it see, now you dont!
After our spelunking, we also decided to eat here for another uber-awesome dinner!
We only had Pasta’s and Mountain Tea –it was U-N-B-E-L-I-E-V-A-B-L-E!
Yum! Yum!
This place’s my favorite eating hub in Sagada. I love the way they cook their food and its hospitality. I won’t mind having to eat here all day long whenever I’m in Sagada 🙂
My First Spelunking Experience In Sagada
This was actually one of our top priorities coming to Sagada – to experience spelunking the Sagada way. It was my first time doing it and I have to tell you that I was nervous as hell! I’ve never done caving in my life but the adventurous side of me wanted to do it so bad! After checking in at St.Joseph and having lunch at the Yogurt House, we immediately texted the Sagada Genuine GuidesAssociation or SaGGAs for our guide and they sent the very nice Kuya Rod who immediately asked us our itinerary. We told him that we’d like to go caving right away and we went to their office to discuss which type we’d like to do. We can do the Cave Connection (two caves connecting – from Lumiang Cave to Sumaging Cave) which would take approximately four hours to finish or the Sumaging cave spelunking (which is the last stop of the cave connection.) Since Dominic and I are very much excited to do it, we decided to do the cave connection. We walked for about 20 minutes to get to the cave’s entrance from the SaGGAs office and while walking through that part of Sagada, you can see the limestones part of the moutains (check picture below) in both sides of the road and saw some hanging coffins in them. Kuya Rod stopped us and asks us if we wanted to take pictures of it so we gladly took turns in taking pictures. With us is another guide (Kuya Rod’s assistant) named Tarik who took our pictures for this adventure.
Look at the background! (btw, the head gear was provided by the guides 🙂 )
When we arrived at the Lumiang cave’s entrance, we were greeted by the world-famous hanging coffins of Sagada. We were amazed at how rich their culture is. We found out that the reason why they are not burying their dead was because they believe that they will be forever dwell at the “underworld” if they bury them underground. We also asked why the coffins are so small and we’re told that they put their dead inside the coffin on a fetal position because they believe that you should be lay to rest the way you were at your Mother’s womb. I even mistakenly asked if this is where they returned the “mummy” that was documented by The Correspondent years before and was told that it’s not in Sagada and they do not mummify their dead because they feel that doing so would violate the body of their deceased loved ones.
These are the coffins you’ll see upon entering the Lumiang Caves
Here’s the entrance of the Lumiang Cave. Looks scary aye?
Noticed the two gecko carvings?
We started the exploration at about two in the afternoon and I’ve to tell you that even before it began, I’m already terrified to death! LOL
Here, Kuya Rod is giving us tips and telling us bits of history about the place
To be honest, I was nervous the whole time that we’re navigating the Lumiang cave because I felt suffocated at first and seeing deep dark holes down are quite unnerving; good thing we have Kuya Rod and Tarik to assist us.
We stop every now and then with Kuya Rod telling us more about the caves and the stone formations we see. It was beautiful and gratifying. These are the real wonders which I hope more people would come to witness themselves. We gasp every time we see beautiful rock formations which we only used to see on pictures and TV/Internet. Touching them and feeling them (and having our picture taken with them) was beyond any experiences I had so far.
These are some stone formations you can see while inside the caves.
The Umbrella or the half Papaya rock formation – whatever you wanna call it. ‘Such gem inside this humongous cave!
This I’d like to call the Gay Queen. Go figure
The Face. What image do you see?
It looks like a…. funny huh? (I wasn’t able to ask the name of this one, but go figure)
The Bull Frog
The pregnant queen. LOL
The King…eerrr… ya know what I mean.
The little Prince
The King’s Curtain
There are still a lot of rock formations and I thought that you should see them on your visit here instead 🙂
Rappelling baby! (it’s about 5 feet high – LOL)
I couldn’t care less about the bats’ poo
After about four hours of walking, hiking, rappelling and sliding – we successfully made the connection from Lumiang to Sumaging cave. I am mighty proud of myself that day!
We couldn’t ask for a better way to start our first day in Sagada. It was a perfect way to kick things off!
The “WE DID IT” pose! Yeaaahhhbbbaaa!
At The Marlboro Country Of Sagada
After our Bomod-Ok adventure, we’re supposed to go to Mount Ampacao (the highest peak in Sagada) but we’re told by Kuya Rod that there are roaming military personnel around that time since the Barangay election was on the following day. (I think it’s not really unsafe –we’re just taking precautions) So we had our lunch at the market along with our three new companions for the Bomod-Ok tour namely Jill, Donna and Angel (who’s actually the man behind Lakwatsero.com) and they told us that they would just rest and not go with us at the Marlboro Country which we chose to go to after the cancelled Mount Ampacao tour.
That’s real excitement!
look at those towering Pines!
The foggy surroundings
It was a tiring 2 hours trek and it feels like forever reaching the peak. The weather isn’t cooperating with us but we could still appreciate the beauty of it. The pines are towering kings of the mountains, wild flowers are all around and the fog is very much accompanying us on this adventure.
some of the wild flowers
at the far left is a wild berry I was told
Upon reaching one of the mountain’s peak, Kuya Rod pointed to us the wild cows and the three more (brown?) horses at a very distant view of the other mountain. It’s unfortunate that our little camera could not get a better view of the wild animals so we just took pictures of ourselves, the view of the seven mountains.
Yay! Finally!
It’s foggy but it’s still beautiful! it’s just worth it
in here you can see that the rocky moutains – lotsa limestones there
Hey Kuya Rod!
View from the top!
It was nonetheless a worthy experience – I personally enjoyed it because I feel closer to heaven and closer to my Mom who actually passed away last July. It was very unfortunate for Doms though, because he’s running a slight fever and it almost took his all his strength to get to the peak to even enjoy it as much as I do but I think he did enjoyed it just the same.
Yes, you’ve to walk another grueling two hours Doms!
I’d say it would have been nicer if the weather was sunny since we started it at around 2:00PM. The weather’s such a bummer to begin with and we’re soaking wet when we arrived at the Inn we’re staying. The next time we go back to Sagada, we’ll probably try to see this place again –hopefully with a better camera and a good weather!
Hey there!
Sagada’s Echo Valley, the Cemetery and Our Way Home!
We decided to go to the Echo Valley by ourselves (as our ME time) on our last day in Sagada but we ended up having our little guide JR accompanying us.
Church of St Mary The Virgin
At the sideof the Church
Inside the Church of St Mary The Virgin
It was closed then but it wasn’t locked and a local bystander opened it for us
Look whom we bumped into!
Conspicuously (kidding) following us was a Korean family who then asked if they could go with us. We passed by the town cemetery and what they call the Calvary, it’s like the peak of the cemetery with a tall white cross.
We’re quite disappointed upon arrival because of fogs covering the valley. It’s where you can also see some hanging coffins. We saw a glimpse of it and some blurry visions of the hanging coffins every now and then though
our little guide JR!
our little tour guide JR. He actually volunteered to guide us 🙂 such a nice little chap!
Right after our short tour in Echo Valley, we checked out from St. Joseph and we’re off to the 11 o’clock bus trip to Baguio ( We decided to use this route because we were told that it’s safer.) It took us another 6 hours going to Baguio. It was a bit scary because the weather isn’t cooperating and while on the road, we had almost zero visibility!
‘bought this during one of our stop overs on our way to Baguio… it does look like an elongated a persimon… anyone?
Another thing though, It was Dominic’s first time in Baguio. He was very disappointed about it but I told him to come here at another time and see the rest of its beauty.
looking so disappointed
a view from SM Baguio
disappointed??? hhmmm
On our way home, it was a very uncomfortable experience because GENESIS, the bus we rode in asked us to transfer because apparently, there are only few passengers and they will be going back to Baguio. Such a bummer because we’re dead tired and we just want to rest!
I was dead tired
Anyways, after that unfortunate incident – we arrived in Cubao, Quezon City at exactly 11:30 in the evening; earlier than we expected. Arriving at the apartment, I immediately dozed off but still had a smile on my face!
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