We Survived Sagada!

     It is fall break and we got the chance to get away to Sagada! Sagada is a beautiful little town way up  in the Mountain Province of our region.  Sagada is surrounded by mountains, caves, waterfalls, a lake and much more.  We were here for 2 full days and took in as much as our bodies could handle.  Here are some pictures:

  Here is a view from one side of town.  The town is mainly 2 roads- both lined with cafes and guesthouses. Then behind those are a maze of houses, gardens and then some large rice fields. 

 View from the other side of town- here you can easily see the rice fields.

You can meander through the small paths of the back parts of the town.. you may get some stares and asked where you are going. You may also witness the slaughtering of a pig...  The green that you see in this picture is mostly sweet potato (aka camote). The town's name was originally "Camote" and the elders still call it that.  Sweet Potatos (camotes) are planted EVERYWHERE in the neighborhood area. Surprisingly enough I didn't see them offered on a menu once. Strange. Maybe they aren't in harvesting season?

We went to Sagada with 3 Filipino teacher friends from school, Lindsey, and Shiloh (a high schooler from church/school) This is all of us before entering the cave.  The things behind us are coffins. Yep- real coffins. They say some still have bones and stuff... but they have just been left here at the mouth of the cave for years.... apparently people used to mess with them and steal the bones... I can't imagine anything is left... I'm surprised the coffins are even still here.  Anyway- google "Sagada coffins" to learn more. We also saw the Sagada hanging coffins- pretty amazing!

This caving trip that we went on was pretty intense! We could have died MANY times. We ended up going barefoot most of the time through bat poopy gunk and over slippery rocks- gross I know, but it was that or slip and die!  I'm still praying that I don't have some weird cave parasite!!  (Don't worry- I'm sure I'm fine, just a flair for drama and hypochondria!) :) 

The BEST part of caving was swimming/jumping in the cave pool.  It was cold- but not unbearable and really fun after having to cross over/through some really difficult and terrifying areas of the cave. 

The second day there we hiked through a mucky rice field... past a water buffalo, over a stream down some steep banks and finally to this waterfall!  It may not be anything special- but we thoroughly enjoyed it- I think due to what we had to do to get there! Meghan and the girls swam under and around the falls. They had a lot of fun! Then we learned that there is a much easier way to get there- I think the tour office just sends tourists through the rice fields to get a good laugh!! Oh well- we had fun and survived!

Craig took this without a tri-pod. Pretty impressive!!

The last thing we did was hike up the mountain road to Sagada Pottery. We were exhausted but Lindsey really wanted to try doing the pottery spinning and we'd been told they let you do it here. So- we hiked and were rewarded with a gorgeous vie! So beautiful! and pottery was fun too!

A natural! 

Lindsey and I did buy shirts that say "I Survived Sagada!"  (Every other tourist shirt here has that on it) but we also all got these shirts- we are pretty darn proud of ourselves for our adventurous weekend. :) The shirt says "I went climbing, hiking and spelunking in Sagada!"  

 The town has their own coffee roasting shop. We went here at least once a day. Here is the first part of the process. They place the beans in a bowl and beat it with a pole to get the outer shell to come off. 

Next they separate the husks from the bean. They throw the husks away and keep the beans, looking for bad beans

After that they roast the beans for 18 days to get it to the correct color. This is the roaster they use. It also sifts through the imperfect beans and spits them out!

The final product!! This was great coffee and it only cost about $.75 per cup!