Showing posts with label Sagada. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Sagada. Show all posts

Wednesday, March 20, 2013

Sagada - Part 2

First Part

The next morning after we surpassed the challenges of  Spelunking, we woke up so early to catch the sunrise in Kiltepan Viewpoint, but unfortunately, the weather failed us. No sunrise at that time, so we just decided to skip the sunrise viewing and bound to our next destination. -  Pongas Falls.

Pongas Falls is situated on the southern part of Sagada, five kilometers away from town. The half day tour there can also arrange at (Sagada Genuine Guide Association) SAGGAS and they will give you a tour guide and a van to rent. 600Php for the ride and another 600Php for the guide.

Howkie! Then we started our walk going to the office of SAGGAS to arrange our adventure. Lucky us, we saw Kuya Rad along the way (Kuya Rad was our guide during our Spelunking). We’re very lucky because Kuya Rad arranged everything for us. Hassle free na!!

We took a van to Ankileng which is the jump off point to the Pongas Falls. After we arrived at Ankileng, we hastily jumped out of the van and this beautiful landscape welcomed us..


Rice terraces of Ankileng

This spectacular view really amazed me.

Seeing this stunning place wanted me to start our trek right away, Parang di nakakapagod maglakad dito.


Ankileng Elementary School

After a few minutes of our walk, we crossed a hanging bridge.



Walking on this bridge was a bit scary because it creaks and it shakes, but I had fun doing it anyway, because its not like everyday you get the chance to do this, right?

Level 1 pa lang at madali pa ang trek, at sobrang nakakaenjoy pa ang mga nakikita ko.



Until we passed the village of Ankileng..
Registration is needed - 10Php each

This was the challenging part of our trek where we had to cross through rice paddies, and there were part that we also had to walk through the narrow edges of the cliff. All hikers should be careful when crossing here because it was really not a joke, your one wrong step can lead you to a serious injury. (No pictures during these extreme hiking, safety first pa rin dapat)

Then after more than 2 hours of our trek, we finally reached the Pongas Falls. We're very happy that after all the obstacles that we surpassed along the way, these beautiful views rewarded us. It’s very beautiful and refreshing.



The waterfalls remains prisitine because of its relative seclusion.








I guess this is the most courageous part of this adventure, because not everybody had the guts to at least try this. Taking a dip in this ice cold water. Hanglameeeeeg!!



After we enjoyed the beauty of Pongas Falls, we went back to town and had a sumptuous lunch at the Yoghurt House.

Yoghurt House is the most popular resto in town, I learned this place when i was googling on where-to-eat-in-sagada prior to our trip and yoghurt house was always on the list, so i was too excited to try their food. 


                        Roasted Eggplant in Basil                                                        Bolognese
Im sorry that i forgot your name                                                    Fruits for all seasons

They served an amazing food for affordable price, no wonder why this place is the most famous resto in town

The pictures can tell how satisfied we were after that sumptuous lunch.
and then we headed to our  accommodation to freshen up before we proceed to our next activity.

After getting some rest, we left our house and jump to our next activity. We headed to echo valley, eager to get a closer glimpse of these hanging coffins. But unfortunately, we were not able to do it again because the place were crowded of students and I guess their professor was also teaching them about something related to the hanging coffins. Bad timing!

This is one of the disadvantages of doing a trip during long weekend, madami ka talagang makakasabay! So we had no choice but to let this opportunity pass, we were just hoping for a good and fun bonfire dinner that night. It was actually very disappointing because hanging coffins was my top reason why i was too excited to go to sagada, but for the second time, di naman natuloy.

Then another bad news came after a while. Kuya Rad informed us that he had to cancel our bonfire dinner due to the bad weather. Wala na, uwi na lang kami ng bahay at dun nagdinner. Pero masaya naman at pyesta ang hinanda ng mga kasama ko.

And because I was still determined to go to the hanging coffins, what happened the next day was Lyn, Ed and I woke up so early, we left our house and went to the echo valley at around 6am while other tourists still enjoying their sleep. Wala na naman sigurong sagabal sa daan ng ganung kaaga.

We were right because there were no other people in the place at that time. We started our trek down hill right away, we just followed the trail until we finally reach it. Sa wakas!!


One of the old customs in Sagada is they hang their tombs on a cliff instead of being placed into the ground, because they believed that the higher the body is laid, the closer the souls were to heaven, they also protecting these bodies from any disasters like floods or earthquakes.




Patunay lang na nakapunta ako ^_^
Now I know why Sagada is one of the most visited tourist attraction in our country, and why Ed never get tired to return here every year. Its because of the perfect cold weather, numerous activities that everyone MUST try, especially the spelunking, and of course this place has lots of natural attractions to discover that Im pretty sure everyone would enjoy. So i guess di pa to ang huli dahil di ko pa naisasagad ang saya sa sagada!!! :)







Thursday, March 7, 2013

Sagada - part1

I really got excited when my friend Ed invited me and our four other friends to have a weekend trip in Sagada, since it was his 5th time to go there,  we let him to do all the planning including our itinerary.  He also made the seat reservations for us at Cable Tours.

Cable Tours - Travels daily from QC to Bontoc
Contact #: +63929-8194688
Address: E. Rodriguez St., Quezon City
Fare: 650.00

Cable Tours Bus

We left Quezon City at around 8:30 PM and took us 13 hours before we reached the serene town of Sagada. Good thing that I had no trouble catching sleep on that bus. The usual trip of Cable tours buses will not take you directly to Sagada, they usually drop their passengers to Bontoc, but since almost half of us commuters were heading to sagada, the driver agreed to extend his trip to our destination and charged us P100 each, but we were able to haggle it down to just 75 pesos. Kelangan lang ng konting diskarte sa pagiging kuripot
Municipal Hall

When we arrived at the municipal hall, we looked for Ate Gladys, the owner of the transient house that Ed learned from the blogs when he was researching for this trip. Ate Gladys welcomed us with a shy smile. Her house is only a 3mins walk downhill to municipal hall, and the best part of it was we were allowed to use almost all of the stuff in her house, we were also permitted to cook at her kitchen and make tambay at her sofa. Indeed, we felt like we were at home..

Living Area/sala with cable TV 
Dining area
Our room
Contact #: (063) 919-4778647
Address: Poblacion, Sagada
Rate: 250.00 per person
Look for ATE GLADYS

After unloading our bags and a short rest, we left the house to start our trip. As we checked our itinerary, the first activity listed there was to walk down to echo valley doooown to the famous hanging coffins, but unfortunately, the rain started to fall and the trek would be difficult because of the slippery trail. So we decided to do the spelunking first.

We went to SAGGAS office to book a tour for spelunking, and the admin of Saggas asked us wether we wanted to go on normal caving (Sumaguing Cave only that will take us 2hrs) or go through the Cave Connection (Lumiang Cave going to Sumaguing Cave and will take us 4 to 6hrs) at dahil mayabang kami at feeling hardcore, Cave connection na ang pinili namin.

After we signed up for this activity, we started our journey going to the cave. Since Ed did this for so many times, he decided not to join us this time so we left him at the Yoghurt House.



After a couple of minutes of walking, we finally reached the starting point of cave connection

Our first glimpse at the lumiang cave

We entered to Lumiang Cave and started our journey. After a few steps, the light coming from the sky outside started to vanish and darkness takes over

Kuya Rad (Our guide from SAGGAS) hunched down and set up our lamp while giving us advice on what to do and not to do during the activity.



Kuya Rad - ang aming kwelang guide

Then after warming up and a deeeeeeep breathe, we followed our guide and he lead us further down. Bahala na si Batman sa amin.


Spelunkers must be in a good physical condition because you must do a lot of crawling, rappelling and there are parts that you need to dip in a cold water.

You also need to get in through small holes
Gapang na kung gapang para makalusot
the rappelling part
Kuya Rad is very stretchable, parang si lastikman.
After some crazy aerobatic stunts that we did, we saw these wonderful rock formations. This time you need to use your imagination for you to see clearly what the rock formations resemble.

Can you see the face?

Haystock Formation


Rated PG

After lots of crawling, climbing and rappelling, we finally reached Sumaguing Cave, meaning we're more than halfway through our spelunking.

Arthur and Narlene

Pahinga pahinga din naman
The cave were crowded because of the long weekend, long weekend for the students, ONLY!!.. :) Daya!
After five minutes of rest, Kuya Rad asked us if we want to go further down where we can see more of rock formations or we want to go up to finally finish our paghihirap spelunking , I guess Kuya Rad noticed that we were already tired. Art, Nar and Ate Connie gave up and didn’t want to continue but Me and Lyn went down, sayang naman ang pagod namin kung di pa namin susulitin, at sayang din ang 400 pesos na binayad namin.

The trek in Sumaguing Cave is a lot easier than Lumiang Cave. Lyn and I were talking about how happy we were to see more of rock formations there, which undeniably more stunning. Again, open your imagination as you see different rock formations.

Big Turtle

Rated PG

Rated PG
Chocolate Cake and another rappeling to see more of rock formations.
The curtains
Rated PG
Mother and Child


The end and my favorite part; wading through the water..
After more than five hours of doing our acrobatic moves, we finally ended and survived the cave connection. I felt fulfilled. But still, we had to do our final stunt: the way up going to our exit. (which is the entrance of Sumaguing Cave)

It was already dark when we finally reached our way out. Since we're all exhausted because of that fulfilling cave connection, we decided to hire a van that would take us to our transient home. We came home tired and hungry but very satisfied :)



This caving experience was the highlight of my sagada trip. This one is a MUST DO when you visit Sagada.