After being offered a one-way ticket and partial room accommodation by a fellow travel blogger J for a next day trip to Baguio, I was up and about on an impulsive trip for a supposed one-day affair at this year’s Panagbenga Festival which unexpectedly turned into a seven-day epic journey.

One quiet and two festive days in the City of Pines, I then travelled to the highlands of Sagada and spent three days walking its rough slopes. Low on cash and clothes to wear, I still decided to extend my journey further by spending two more days at the shadows of the massive Banaue Rice Terraces.

It’s been one heck of a week; new and old friends met on the road, hundreds of dogbarks from Sagada and Banaue, indescribable vistas seen, cheap and expensive meals from carinderias and posh restaurants, scary lodges and swanky hotels, four thousand five hundred pesos, three heavy cameras, a few clothes on my backpack and my battered trek shoes along the roads and non-roads of Baguio, Sagada and Banaue.

This has been one of my more memorable trips to date, and I’ll tell you all the dirty details in the coming months. Right now, I have to rest.

I was traveling out of town when my sister texted me asking if I ordered a Canon camera. Confused, I asked her why, as I never did buy one. She said that a camera had been delivered at our house and it was addressed to me. Opening the parcel, it turned out my photo was picked as one of the monthly winners for Living Asia Channel’s photo contest.

Living Asia Channel is a local travel station on cable TV; actually one of the five channels I’m usually tuned into besides NatGeo, Discovery, TLC and History Channel--whenever I have the rare chance of watching TV that is.  

Along with Canon, they are currently running a photo contest with the theme one-shot moments; seize life with Canon. Anyone with a Canon point & shoot camera (sorry no DSLR’s allowed) can submit their travel-related photographs; four photos are then chosen from the pool every month and each winner given a Canon Powershot A490 camera as prize.

   

Here's a rough sketch of my three-day stay in Sagada, Mountain Province:  

I T I N E R A R I E S
 
    Day One
    Manila to Baguio
    Baguio to Sagada
    St. Joseph Resthouse
    Echo Valley
    Church of St. Mary the Virgin

    Day Two
    Kiltepan Viewpoint
    Rock Inn & Café
    Hike To Bomod-Ok Falls
    Bomod-Ok Falls
    Bonfire Dinner At Lake Danum

    Day Three
    Calvary Hill
    Breakfast At Masferré
    Saturday Market
    Souvenir Hunting
    Sagada-Bontoc-Manila

 

E X P E N S E S

Transportation En Route to Sagada:
    P450.00 - Manila to Baguio via Victory Liner

    P220.00 - Baguio to Sagada via buses from the Dangwa Station
Transportation En Route to Manila: 
    P40.00 - Jeep to Bontoc

    P650.00 - Bus from Bontoc to Manila via Cable Tours Bus
Accommodation:
    P1,200.00 - Twin-Bed room at St. Joseph Resthouse

                  Cell Phone: (0927) 236-0344 
                  Email: JuliaAbad47@yahoo.com.ph

Guided Tour: 
    Kiltepan Viewpoint, Rock Inn & Café, Bomod-Ok Falls, 
        Bonfire Dinner At Lake Danum

    P800.00+ - Divided among the friends I met at Sagada

        SAGGAS (Sagada Genuine Guide Association) Guide | Ben:  0929-5915212

F O O D

Day One 
    P80.00 | Breakfast at Burnham Park Carinderia 
    P15.00 | Coffee at Burnham Park 
    P50.00 | Mami at Strawberry Cafe

    P100.00+ | Longsilog at Banas Café & Resto

    P???.00 | Coffee at Banas Café & Resto

Day Two

    P100.00+ | Vegetable Rice with Bacon and Egg

    P000.00   | Sandwiches for Bomod-Ok Falls lunch (Courtesy of my newfound
                     friends from Bicol)
    P100.00+ | Spaghetti Meatballs at St. Joe’s Cafe

    P000.00   | Pinikpikan Bonfire Dinner at Lake Danum (Part of the tour fee
                     from SAGGAS)

Day Three

    P100.00+ | Longsilog Breakfast At Masferré

    P  60.00+ | Tocilog at Cable Cafe in Bontoc

T O T A L   S P E N D I N G S
    More or Less P4,000.00
 
Places that I was not able to visit:

    Sumaguing Cave
    Sumaguing-Lumiang Cave Connection
    Bokong Falls (Small Falls)
    Mount Ampacao (Trek via Lake Danum)
    Yoghurt House
    Lemon Pie House
    Sagada Weaving

Noontime on my third day at Sagada; sadly, it was time to go back to the noisy streets of Manila.

For my way back, I decided on trying out the Sagada-Bontoc-Manila route. It’s a thirty-minute jeep-ride from Sagada to Bontoc, then an eleven-hour bus trip to the metro. The jeep fare costs Php40.00 and those who have adventure tattooed on their foreheads can ride on the jeep’s roof for a more scenic and heart-thumping view. Just be sure to wear a bandana across your nose and shades for your eyes though as the road can get quite dusty. From Bontoc, it costs Php650.00 for an aircon bus via Cable Tours.

Last on my Sagada series is the place I stayed in for the three days I spent on that mountain retreat, the rustic St. Joseph’s Resthouse.

The inn is owned and run by the Episcopal Diocese of Northern Philippines and has been in operation since the 1960’s, one of the oldest if not the oldest hotel in Sagada. It is actually more of a compound rather than a single apartment. 

Being situated on a knoll, visitors start off by ascending one hundred and eight stone steps before reaching the main house. Dotting the hill are separate bungalows that are also rented out and St. Joe’s Restaurant, the inn’s own separate bistro. It has a grand view of the town especially on its second floor terraced deck.

A vacation to a faraway locale would not be complete without the usual souvenirs, and Sagada has a multitude of stores catering to just those stuff that would take a good half of your day to check through.

The last few hours of my Sagada trip were spent browsing through such stores; checking out shirts, ref magnets, keychains, furniture, wood carvings, hand-made papers, bags, colorful fabrics and all sorts of thingamajigs.

I ran across a very unique Sagada t-shirt store on my first day here and promised the girl watching over the makeshift boutique that I would buy from her on my last day. A local Sagada artist owns the store and the shirts they sell are really quite different in that they are all painstakingly hand-painted, each one taking about two days to finish.

A long stretch of Sagada’s main road transforms from a concrete byway to a bustling marketplace every Saturday. This is apparently the Sagadan way of doing their weekly shopping.

Placed on burlap sacks are beans of every kind; spread on tarps, cabbages, potatoes, and other root crops; live chickens on wire mesh cages; clothes, housewares, toys, and almost everything a regular market has, they have it here. 

I was strapped for cash the whole time I was in Sagada. Never expecting that my lodging would cost me a thousand plus pesos a night, I brought just enough for a Php250.00 to Php400.00 budget for my nightly accommodations. I had to scrimp on food just to have enough cash to last me until the town’s ATM opened. And yes, Sagada has an ATM. The only thing was, since it was the holidays, it was closed ‘til Black Saturday, that’s two days worth of eating fishballs and noodles for me then.
 
At last Saturday came and I finally got some hard cash. Time to dine on the many restos dotting the streets of Sagada.