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We'd put off our trip to Sagada until after New Year's, given that we had heard that the place really fills up between Christmas and New Year's day. But we'd felt like we'd waited long enough, and even though it was only just New Year's Day, we decided to roll the dice and head up the mountain to Sagada.
For the first time on our trip, things were actually closed. It was New Year's Day after all, but we strangely had no trouble at all on Christmas Day. We had moved from San Juan to Vigan by bus and jeepney without an issue, but here on New Year's day we were having some trouble. There weren't any buses or jeepney's operating in Bontoc.
But, as Sebastien has said repeatedly in our time together, “There's always a way.” After our breakfast at Mr. Donuts, we found an enterprising man who owned a van a was willing to take us to Sagada. At first, the price seemed a bit exorbitant. The guy was clearly taking advantage of the jeepney shutdown. But we quickly worked out that it was only about $10 each, and shrugged it off. If we wanted to get
to Sagada, this was the way. Four other travellers from Quebec joined us in the van, and we set off up the windy road into Sagada.
We were dropped off at a fork in the road in town in a place that you could call the town square. The town itself is pretty much one road. It's obvious this place sees its share of tourism given the number of guesthouses and restaurants around. It's definitely more developed than Mainit and Maligcong.
We walked down the road and found the place that Odd had recommended we stay, but they only had one really nice room left with a beautiful view. We flipped a coin for it, and the Belgians one, so Vanessa and I found another nice place nearby with a really nice owner.
We met Noemi and Sebastien for lunch at the Brew Cafe. It was one of the few restaurants open, and they were out of almost everything. Clearly it had been a busy holiday season. Still, it was a really nice place, and the couple of menu items they did have were pretty tasty. And it gave us the energy to go for an afternoon
Cool Geology
If only we brought a geologist...walk, so we set off to see the hanging coffins at the entrance to the caves.
The caves are a big attraction in Sagada. There's a network of them, and taking a guided tour into one of the caves is very popular. But the grandaddy of all the tours is the Cave Connection tour, where you start in one cave and work your way underground for three hours to another cave. This is the experience that the four of us were gunning for, but for now we didn't have a guide with us and just wanted to check out the cave entrances.
There are more than a hundred wooden coffins stacked in the entrance of Lumiang caves, and it's more than a little impressive... and eerie. They are mostly carved from tree trunks and have carvings of lizards on them, then placed high up in the rock in impossible looking places. We had no idea how they got them up there. Unfortunately for a few of the deceased, over the decades and centuries, pieces of rock had fallen and crushed the lids of their coffins. So there are a few bones visible, and you can see inside a
few of the coffins.
So let's add that up. We're alone at the entrance of a huge dark cave, there's a hundred coffins stacked up, and some skeletons and parts of skeletons scattered around. It was a little creepy. It was also straight out of Indiana Jones (yet another Disney reference). I was just missing a torch and a cool hat.
We also scouted out Sumaging cave, where the cave connection would end up. It was also big and dark. I was originally quite excited about the cave connection, but now I was having second thoughts. It looked like there could be some serious spelunking inside. Plus ghosts and vampires and stuff.
With our scouting mission completed, we walked back towards town along the road before taking a detour along the footpaths and sideroads through the outlying villages.
And then another wonderful thing happened that will rival our Mainit experience. Actually, I'll call it a continuation of our Mainit experience. We happened upon a celebration that had just started, and the sound of the gongs drew us in. It was small, and nothing like the wedding that we had witnessed a couple of days before. There
were only about twenty people there, and it was just a few families celebrating the New Year's Day together.
We were immediately invited to join. So yeah, we did. We watched them play the gongs, and they were letting the children have a turn. They also shared some gin with us, and offered us some dog meat.
Yeah, I should explain. Dog meat is a thing in this particular part of the Philippines. So just a heads up there. The good news here is people are well aware that outsiders are not always keen on trying dog meat, so they will always tell you it's dog meat before offering. It won't get slipped into something unknowingly, and you won't be considered rude for saying no.
We said no.
But I'm not sure if I can claim to be taking the moral high ground here. I eat meat. Animals raised for food are just that, animals raised for food. Can I really make the argument that dogs can't be raised for food? Not that successfully. But I do love dogs. And I'd probably have some difficulty looking a dog in the eyes without thinking, “I ate a
dog once. Just for something to do.” There'd be some guilt there. (Can dogs smell guilt? Probably...) There are probably circumstances that I would try dog meat, and given that it is a traditional food unique to the culture that is unique to this part of this island in the Philippines, it was pretty close. But not this time. And maybe never...
It was, however, the perfect circumstance to try the gongs! There was nooooo way I was going to try to play in front of four hundred people at the wedding I wasn't invited to back in Mainit, but twenty people including a bunch of kids? Yeah! Sure! If not now, then I'm never going to get the opportunity again.
Vanessa was handed a gong first, but she didn't really take to it, so she passed it to me. It was pretty hard at first, because when I was playing my gong, it was harder for me to hear everybody else playing, and keep in time.
I was shown the right way to play, and was given the largest and loudest gong of the bunch... Which was not what I wanted to start with. I would
have preferred a smaller, quieter gong. A practice gong. But I was given plenty of encouragement by our hosts, and the small group of us started to play.
I was also taught how to dance with the gongs, and I followed the group around. When the leader crouches, everybody crouches. When the leader walks, everybody walks. When the leader stops, everybody stops. When they move to the center of the circle... You get the idea. And it's pretty straight forward. If you have a sense of rhythm, you can do it. So I barely qualified.
It was a really, really cool experience. The gongs themselves are made of thick, heavy metal. Maybe brass, I'm not sure. They're shaped like pans. And did I mention that they're heavy?
Vanessa was taught how to dance to the gongs. And Vanessa also spent most of this time playing with a little girl who liked to jump and spin with Vanessa. When it came time to leave, she really didn't want Vanessa to go.
Apparently small celebrations like this are very common this time of year around Sagada, and we'd see and hear a few more over the next couple
of days.
Since we didn't have any food or alcohol with us to share, we headed back to town to have some dinner. Vanessa and I went to a small restaurant, which was also out of almost everything. We had some pancit, and watched the news with the owner. More than 600 people were injured in New Year's Eve celebrations around the Philippines, and many injuries looked pretty bad. I guess the news doesn't hesitate to show those images, and there were a lot of them. The owner shook her head and said, “Every year...” So the crazy loud personal fireworks are also sometimes dangerous. Noted.
And we heard several go off throughout the night again. I'll say one thing, they know how to celebrate the holiday season in the Philippines, and keep it going!
We met Sebastien and Noemi back at the Brew Cafe for a drink. We opted for the hot chocolate, since it was actually feeling pretty chilly that night... It's definitely colder way up in the mountains.
It was an early night. We had our cave connection adventure ahead of us! And the next morning we awoke and had breakfast next door
Looking Down into the Cave
Our Cave Connection Tour will end here. at the Strawberry Cafe with our Belgian friends. And we got ourselves pancakes, bacon and eggs, and it was awesome! A far cry from a traditional Filipino breakfast, but a nice treat.
Afterwards, we went up to the tourist information desk to arrange our cave connection guide. And at 1pm, we met our guide, Ben.
Ben wore flip flops, shorts, and a tee shirt. Actually, all the guides do. Actually, everybody around here does. This is a nation of full time flip flops wearers, and that's something I can get behind. Except when descending into a cave, and hiking and climbing around inside. Then it seems totally insane. But, these guides do it every day, and every day hundreds of tourists are guided through the caves. But most of the tourists wear shoes, I think...
We walked the couple of kilometres to the entrance of Lumiang cave, and Ben stopped to pick up a gas lantern along the way. He lit it at the entrance, and also lit one last cigarette before descending into the cave. The Belgians joined him with their last cigarettes.
Ben told them they could just toss their cigarettes on the ground.
Naturally, this made us a little uneasy, and was another example of opposing cultural values. Ben said the guides walk through every few days and clean up all the garbage, but still. It would be easier for us just to pack our garbage out with us, and so we did. We were raised on the national parks of Europe and Canada, where leaving garbage behind is the worst kind of sin. So they just handle it a bit differently in the Philippines. Still, we figured we'd do the guides a favour and pack out our garbage so they wouldn't have to pick it up later.
When he cigarettes were extinguished, we began our descent. And speaking of the descent... have you seen the movie “The Descent”? I have. It's one of the reasons I was uneasy about going into the big dark caves. If you see it, you'll probably have similar reservations. I brought up the movie, but no one had seen it. I started to describe it, but Vanessa made me shut up. I guess she didn't want stories about spelunking and cave ins and monsters to add to her own apprehension. Fair enough, I guess...
But
That View Again
With the sun a little lower now. our experience turned out to be very little like the movie, and there was a notable absence of blood and gore and monsters. There were also no cave ins, and it was must less intense and claustrophobic. In fact, the cave itself is quite large and open for the most part. Ben also had soothing reggae music playing on his phone while we walked through the cave. At first, I thought, “That music might kind of ruin this experience.” But then I realised that, “Actually, it makes it better.” It certainly lightened the mood and helped with any anxiety any of us might have otherwise had. “Bob Marely's right! Everything's totally fine all the time!”
There were only a few places where we had to crawl, climb, or pull ourselves through short sections, but that was only for a few meters at a time. Fortunately, we had Ben to guide us, and he would squeeze through the rocks and climb down the ropes first and then he would guide us through and tell us where to put our hands and feet. And he did it with a gas lantern in one hand. I was happy to have both hands
free to hold the ropes.
We were also glad we had all brought our own headlamps. The gas lanterns that the guides carry do put out an extraordinary amount of light, and they provide that authentic Indiana Jones vibe. But when Ben would climb down a rope, or go around a corner, the light went with him. It never would have been totally dark, but dark enough that monsters would have totally been able to sneak up on us.
The descents were challenging, but all very doable for anyone in average physical condition. And it was all very rewarding. You'd look down a hole that Ben had gone down and think, “There's no way that's safe. There's no way I can do that as easily as Ben just did.” But then Ben would guide us down slowly (with the steady assistance of Bob Marley), “With you right foot, reach down below, and there is a very good hold.” And step by step, we'd all make it down the few meters, and all feel pretty darn good about ourselves for what we accomplished.
In total, we descended over 200 meters down below the surface of the Earth (which
sounds crazy when I think about it). There were large open places where you could see 30-40 meters straight down, and see another tour group basked in the glow of their gas lantern and think, “We have to go all the way down there??? How the hell...” But we'd slowly pick our way down through small caves, one descent at a time, and a few meters at a time. And sure enough, we'd get to the bottom and look back up and see another tour group and think, “I can't believe I used to be all the way up there!”
Mostly though, once most of the descent into the cave was complete, we walked easily through large open caverns, probably 20 meters wide and 20 meters tall on average. So claustrophobia was never a great concern. In fact, Ben told us that during WWII, the people of Sagada stayed in the caves for many months to hide away from the Japanese. Every few days, a few men would have to leave the cave at night to go and scavenge food. It's hard to imagine a whole town living in a cave for six months, but in a time of
desperation, like the war, it would probably seem like the only logical thing to do.
We continued through the cave, seeing cool rock formations that looked like things, went through a big open place called the Dance Hall, heard the sounds of bats, and saw the bats hanging from the ceiling, and swam in a pool of water creatively called “the swimming pool”. Vanessa and I swam in the swimming pool, while Ben and the Belgians smoked another cigarette (apparently you can also smoke inside caves in the Philippines). The water was freezing cold, so it didn't last too long. But it was a very neat experience to be swimming in a pool, in a cave, underground, on an island, in the Philippines.
We continued our trek through stretches of waist deep water. We took off our shoes and waded through barefoot. Fortunately, the rock was very grippy on our bare feet.
Finally, we climbed back up and out of Sumaging cave at the other end of our adventure. We had done it, and in total we'd spent a little over three hours underground. What a unique experience! It's definitely something I'm glad I did.
After
paying and thanking Ben for guiding us on our experience, we walked back up the road and stopped at a cafe overlooking the valley. With what little money we had left in our pockets (we only brought what we needed for the cave connection with us) we bought ourselves a snack and a round of beers.
And they had a new beer! So far, we'd only seen San Miguel Light, the Pale Pilsen, and Red Horse. But here, they had something called Cerveza Negra. And it was delicious! It was easily the best of the beers we had so far in the Philippines. It was so nice and dark and full of flavour. It's also brewed by San Miguel, so I'm not sure why we haven't seen it elsewhere. We're definitely keeping our eyes open for more of it!
After some showers back at our respective guesthouses, we met up at the Yoghurt House for dinner, but it was jam packed. Instead, we ended up going up the road to the Kimchi Cafe, which was a Korean/Bob Marley themed place. I've seen at least three other Bob Marley themed places in town, including the bar next door. I'm
pretty sure if you made a list of the most influential people (on a global basis) that ever lived, Bob Marley would easily be in the top three. Bigger than Jesus, maybe? Well, you can;t say that, of course...
And in this Korean Bob Marley restuarant, I ordered a Korean Kimchi Jigae. And as a reult, I can tell you that I've been able to conclude 100% for certain that the food in the Philippines has no spice. Even the spice in Korean food is toned way, way down to almost nothing. It's a little disappointing. I probably couldn't eat Filipino food forever.
Before we went to bed, Vanessa and I arranged a van to take us up the Kiltipan peak for sunrise. This is one of the things to do here, and Odd had encouraged us to go and do it. The Belgians opted out, believing that getting up at 4am for sunrise was totally unreasonable, which is the rationale and correct reaction. Still, Vanessa and I wanted to do it. And I felt an obligation to follow Odd's advice. He had yet to steer us wrong, so why not?
So we did drag ourselves out
of bed at 4am, and we waited in the lobby for our van driver, who was supposed to meet us at 4:30am. But he was late. I was getting anxious that he wasn't going to be showing up at all, and that we had gotten up at at 4am for no reason, but he did eventually show up just before 5am. And there was still plenty of time to get to the top of the mountain before sunrise.
The consolation for getting up at 4am is that you can drive all the way to the top of the mountain. This is popular, so the guides get together and have a bonfire that you can hang out at while you wait. Instead, we sat on the edge of the valley waiting for the sunrise.
At the office where I'd booked the van the night before, the guide had warned me that, “Seeing the sunrise is 35% luck.” And also that, “Yesterday, there was no sunrise.” This raised several questions (which I never bothered to ask): “What do you mean it's 35% luck? I'm pretty sure the sun rises everyday. Is there a lot of doomsday fear around here? Wait,
if it's 35% luck, what's the other 65%? Is it skill? Is there a special strategy we should be aware of? What do you mean there was no sunrise yesterday? It was definitely sunny all day yesterday...” And our van driver was also warning us of the uncertainty of the sunrise. What is going on around here?
But of course, they must have meant that the sunrise might be obscured by clouds, and you just might not get to see the moment the sun peaks over the mountains. And luckily for us, there wasn't a single cloud in sight anywhere, so we would see the sunrise. On the other hand, the photos in the tourist office showed puffy clouds filling the valley below, and the sun peaks over the mountaintops and you stand above the clouds. That would have been amazing. So unfortunately, the clouds did not fill the valley, and there were only a few that started to creep up from the valley below when the sun started to rise. That must be the 65%.
The coolest part was hearing all of the roosters crowing throughout the valley below. Ultimately, the sunrise experience could have been a
bit better if we had been up there by ourselves, instead of amongst the thirty or so other tourists (it's interesting to note that almost all the “tourists” that we see are from the Philippines. People here love to travel and explore their country on their holidays). You know, a little more private, and maybe it would have felt a bit more special. Also, if the sunrise could happen at, say 9am, that would be more hospitable.
Still, I'm glad we went and did it, and we still got another hour of sleep back at The Residential before our breakfast with the Belgians at the strawberry cafe. Afterwards, we started out on a hike together to some waterfalls, but the trail was quite muddy and Vanessa's shoes were really slippery. So the two of us headed back and decided to hike through echo valley instead.
Echo Valley, like the caves, has coffins in it. But here, they are hanging coffins, and they've been placed on wooden dowels drilled into the rock high above and out of reach. It would be a pretty neat place to be buried, with a view.
There's also some rock climbing you can
do, and they have a couple of ropes set up with guides to belay. We decided not to bother.
Instead, we hiked through the valley. There are a multitude of trails in the valley branching out in every direction. The guidebook warns that people going through the valley without a guide are likely to get lost and spend hours picking their way through. So we took detailed notes of every turn we made so we could retrace our steps if required.
But the valley is quite narrow, and after a while it reduces to one trail, so it's not so bad. We ended up following it all the way to the cave at the end with an underground river. After the confidence boost we had from our cave connection, this looked easy. It was flat, and open, and supposedly only a few hundred meters long. But we thought the better of it and climbed our way out of the valley on the trail next to it.
We circled back to the viewpoint overlooking Echo Valley before returning to the Residential to work out our sleeping arrangements for the night. Aunt Mary, who is the owner of the
Residential (a former school teacher and one of the nicest people of all time) had let us know when we checked in that we would be able to stay for two nights, but could stay at her sisters for our third night. So we were expecting to have to change guesthouses, but she had a cancellation. It just happened to be a large suit in the lower floor with a private bathroom, kitchenette, and beds for seven people.
She told us we could stay there for the same rate we had been paying, which is sort of ridiculous, and further proof that Aunt Mary is one of the nicest people of all time. She must have liked us too to give us such a big room when she probably could have waited for a larger party to come through. The moral here is that everyone should stay with Aunt Mary the Residential in Sagada.
So we moved our bags to our new executive suite, and began to dig through our clothes to get them ready to do some laundry. Our daily routine of sink and shower laundry only goes so far before we have to break down and
have our clothes washed properly in a machine. And since all of our clothes were dirty, it made it easy to figure out what to put in the laundry bag. But we couldn't walk around town naked... well, probably not anyway... so the hardest part was deciding which clothes were still clean enough to wear, and could make it to the end of the trip just being washed in sinks and showers.
We dropped off all of our clothes at the laundromat. And this means that we dropped off about 90% of everything we had packed on the trip. Seriously, there was nothing left in our backpacks that we'd left behind in the guesthouse.
We still had an afternoon to kill (funny how long a day can be when you get up at 4am), so we walked back to the lookout cafe where we had tasted our first Cerveza Negra's the day before. We were hoping to get some more, and enjoy a nice relaxing lunch, but it was closed. In fact, most places in town were closed. Maybe we were too late for lunch?
We ended up going back to the Brew Cafe for some tasty
hamburgers and lava cake! I'd been craving a desert for a couple of days for some reason, so I finally got to scratch that itch. We left there very, very full, and still tired from our early rising, so we had a nap back at the Residential.
When we woke up, we picked up our freshly laundered clothes, which smelled amazing, had showers, and felt like new people.
We met Noemi and Sebastien back at the Yoghurt Cafe to see if we could get in for dinner. This time, we sat on the upstairs balcony, and they agreed to serve us out there. It was a little chilly, but worth it just to try the food. I ordered a sweet and spicy java chicken, which further reinforced the notion that food in the Philippines has no spice. But the yoghurt with banana and nuts that I had afterwards was amazing. And we bought some tasty lemon oatmeal cookies on our way out the door. Some for us, and some for Odd to give to him when we'll (hopefully) see him in Manila.
And that was pretty much it for Sagada. We'd done everything we went there to
do, and more. So it felt like time to move on, and we set our sights on getting to Batad.
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