it begins with a step

Mountain Province – Sagada

“We don’t remember the days, we remember the moments.”
– Cesare Pavese

Who:
Red and Roc, Kat and Mina, and Loi

What:
I fell in love with Batad, Banaue even more so and since then I’ve wanted to visit it again, see more of the province. So on my birth month I thought it was a good idea to head up to Sagada with a few of my travel friends. I booked our tickets online via Biyaheroes (note to self: print vouchers), searched Facebook for good accommodations and luckily found Martha’s Hearth. It’s not at the town centre and we actually had to walk for about 7mins to get to the inn but we didn’t mind except when it rained during our 1st night and had to power walk/run to get back. PS, I like the fact that people mostly walked in Sagada, except maybe when you’re going on tours.

Day 1 – we went caving (the short course one, of course) and while the trek was pretty easy the cave was dark and the rocks could get slippery. I enjoyed having to rappel going down and up a huge boulder and the water got pretty cold and the toes of my right foot cramped a bit. We were supposed to catch the sunset over at Lake Danum but it rained hard, we ended up heading back to the centre to have dinner and buy a few bottles of beer to drink at the inn.

Day 2 – early morning (430am) we went up Mt. Kiltepan hoping to see the sunrise, alas there haring araw was shy but we did get to catch a glimpse of the sea of clouds as they rolled in before the fog settled. We then went orange picking at Rock Farm (Php50 entrance), ate a few, then had breakfast at their inn. I ordered eggs benedict and thankfully I was able to take a photo of it because it was pretty good (I also looooved Yoghurt House’s yoghurt + Sagada honey). Afterwards, we headed back to the inn to rest pack, our return bus was scheduled to leave at 2pm. All in all we paid Php400 per pax for all the tours we took, not bad no?

I took home a small bottle of honey, 2 bags of Sagada coffee, and while en route to Manila at one of our stop-overs I bought buchiron as pasalubong for work mates. Tita Sol from the inn said the lemon pie sold at the co-op was better than Sagada Lemon Pie House. Can’t wait to go back to try it! ❤

Update: Kat said the pie at the coop wasn’t any better LOL

Breakfast muna as soon as we arrived, this was the view from the balcony of the B & B
Our place for the night! Super nice, it was initially intended for 2 pax but they took pity (?) on me when I kept asking if there was an available room LOL. It’s a shared space, Kat, Mina, and Loi were in the other room. and the only time it became a problem was when most of us felt the need to use the toilet. At the same time 😀
Class photo! I love this crew ❤
Bakit blurred?? Camera ko tapos ako lang yung may blurry shot 😦 LOL
This was the best spot for me. We had to walk a bit to get here but once there it gave a view of the hillside, there’s a bit of fog creeping still, it was just our group and it was so quiet.