Wander Woman: #SAGADnA
The trip that almost never happened. Planning started around August 2017, and it was initially with Kaye, Dean, Jeff and I until Dean and Jeff couldn’t make it and so we had Kaye’s jowa and Roy, but at around 2am of November 23, there were only Kaye and I in the bus stop.
Manila to Sagada estimated travel time is around 12 hours, and I don’t think we can do that especially we were going straight from work —hustle is life! haha So we decided to make a quick stop in Baguio and just catch a bus from there to Sagada which will leave around 1pm.
So upon arriving in the City of Pines around 8am the next day, we had their signature Strawberry taho and walked around Upper Session Road and Burnham Park, grabbed a quick bite and got a cab and gone artsy to the BenCab Museum.
I’ve been admiring his work ever since and I’ve always wanted to cross this museum off my artsy-list and what better thing to do in Baguio if you’re only there to kill a few hours.
What I loved about this trip, and note that this is just our first major stop, is that we took a whole lot of pictures. As in. It’s like we had this trip just to freaking put something up on our Instagram feeds hahaha
It was a good three hour walk and photoshoot, and we do mean photoshoot because no corners with potential missed our sight (please see attached hahaahha), before we we went to the Center Mall to catch the last trip of the GL Trans Bus Line going to Sagada.
It was most anxious ride ever, well for me at least, and it lasted for more than 7 hours! I honestly thought Sagada was just around the corner from Baguio, like a 2 hour drive or something. Little did I know it was freaking 7 hours away with a road so narrow, our chances of making it was less than 12%. It was an endless journey of going up and around the mountains of Cordilleras and as much as I loved the cold fresh air that was breezing inside the all closed bus, I was literally panicking the whole time because I can clearly see the view as we were seating nearest to the cliffs AND IM DEAD SCARED OF HEIGHTS. No shit I was totally agitated the whole time.
We reached the town around 7:30pm and it was already so dark out. We went straight to the town hall where tourists must register once they arrive, and booked our Kiltepan trip. We got super exhausted from our La Union trip trying to get all shit done in a day that we decided to take everything slow for this one, and just basically go around and chill.
We were 5000ft above sea level on a November night, and obviously the temperature started dropping some more so we went to the first store we saw to buy my head a protection, which was a bonnet, and it was really nice, it kept my brain warm hahaha We were super eager to get a good enough place to stay in and eat in because we didn’t get any of those during our trip in LU, as well, and it was such a bummer. Syempre diba when you’re traveling, you’ll want to do most of the things that the locals do there diba, to know more about their culture and like appreciate being there more, right? So for this trip, we really wanted to get immersed with everything that is Sagada, and not just the tourist attractions, which really made me love the little town more.
After dropping our stuff in our room, we ate dinner at the Slabhouse which was also very close to where we’re staying. We didn’t stay that much outside that night though since it was super cold and we’re super tired plus we have a 4am call time tomorrow to catch the sunrise, so we immediately headed back to our room in Traveler’s Inn.
We were supposed to get ourselves cleaned but the water was ice and we’re basically dead when we got hold of our beds that our 10 min nap became a good 7 hour sleep. And we woke up 20mins before call time hahahahahaha so yes, we didn’t even bother showering HAHAHAHA and headed straight to Kiltepan with our other tourmates or whatever you call them
Freaking Sagada, I was literally freeeeezing the whole time we were waiting for the sun to rise. As in shaking and trembling ganon, no doubt hypothermia sya hahahahahahaha and Kaye was just laughing kasi gago sobrang nilalamig talaga ako that I even asked her to hug my leg ahhahahaha it was extremely cloudy though that we really didn’t see the sunrise but it was a magnificent view to hold, being so up high, almost touching the clouds.
And since I was shivering, I wasn’t able to get any good pics of Kaye and I wasn’t able to aura good enough to get a good shot as well (sorry!!! hahaha) but good thing our tour guide asked us if we want to try and see the Echo Valley with the Hangging Coffins. Of course we needed that gram photo so off we go.
Happy that it didn’t take so much trek or hike to reach the valleys and to see the coffins but it was active enough to get me all spurred up again and actually be in the right condition to aura pak pak ganon. But aside from that, the place wasn’t still really crowded since most of the other tourists are still picking oranges haha so we had the place all to ourselves, and no photo bombers, and a lot more time to actually understand why the Igorots hang their coffins.
We finished going around the touristy spots around 9am but we had to catch the bus going back to Manila around 1pm so we had a good four hour spare time to have lunch, go around, try more restaurants and get more pictures. And that’s exactly what we did. And after that we went home which was a twelve hour drive. Ewan ko ba, parang nasa bus lang kami the whole weekend hahahaha
But yuh, it was basically just a trip to get away from the city with a right amount of touring and chill, but maybe too much on the travel time haha it was really just to find other reasons to live, still.
