The Cordillera Road Trip: EP12: The Sagada Tour

We are provided one guide to take us for the rest of the day. I can say that 500 is enough for 4 people who are only up for a day in Sagada.

First stop was Sugong Hanging Coffins Viewpoint:

Our tour only allows us the view and if you squint a little, yes you can see a few hanging coffins there.

Second stop was the Lumiang Burial Caves:

For Cave Connections, they start here and end up at Sumaguing. Since we're not on that track, we simply gazed at it for a while so we need to retrace our steps back to Sumaguing. The trek going here is strenuous for sedentary people like me and my sister and going to and fro is an extreme effort. 

Third stop was Sumaguing Cave

We haven't recovered that much from the earlier trek and yet we are here again on another trekking activity. Don't let your eyes deceive you with this stairs as you won't have any of this once you're in the cave.

It looks like it's our tour guide's first day as it took as so long to get inside. He can't get his lamp burning correctly and we end up staying there most of the time. My sister was already complaining given how long it's taking off of our itinerary for the day. We ended up watching people going out of the cave, obviously exhausted. It's weird how some of them came out wet and without shoes, while there are some too who have spotless shoes.

When we managed to get in, not until a few minutes when our guides' lamp went out. Darn it. We have our own flashlight but the dark is just too deep that I realized that the lamp is quite essential in this caving. We are again stuck, but now in the darkness, and every time another guide goes through, they try to help our tour guide light his lamp but to no avail. My father says the lamp itself is faulty so we can't blame everything to the guide. Each guide only has just one lamp so they can't exactly replace their own with another's. It's embarrassing how we kept on holding back other groups from going in and out of the cave just to help our guy.

A large group came in who was finally successful with our lamp but I noticed how the glow from ours is different from what the rest have. I guess this won't last long again. 

When we're back on track I realize a lot of things.

1. Their suggestion to not bring anything IS A MUST. You need your entire body in this caving that carrying anything would not only be a burden to you but at some point, you will eventually tire of lugging it around. 

2. Gloves. The next time I'd go there I'd have gloves. The cave is still inhabited by bats and since we know that bats live on the ceiling of caves, their poo has to go somewhere. And when your dear life is on the line, YOU WILL eventually hold on to rocks that are slippery with water, mud and bat sh*t. While inside you can say you really are full of cr*p haha!

3. Hat. When my sister was left behind (she had our large flashlight) when she can't go on any further (it was getting harder to descend) she said she felt how her head experienced a few bat bombs here and there. She did have a hat on but I didn't...so...

4. I will not bring a good camera in anymore. First of, my limbs are really not up for caving since they're all uhm... short. What the guide does of sliding down is not for me as I need to double my efforts finding where my shoes and hands can fit into while on the descend. With that, I had my camera slung on my back because it may be scraped if I put it in front of me. This worked perfectly fine until at the last moment after the descend, I slipped. My butt ached so bad that after checking that I didn't have my spine fractured, I checked my camera if it's still intact. It was, but it was a good scare.

5. Better shoes. Although this is a sporty shoe, I think it's best if I have a more cave-ish type of shoe wherein I wouldn't slip. I guess the rubber has gone too slippery because of what's already stuck on it. 

It's probably my slip so my father urged us not to go on. It's saddening but I don't think I can disagree with his judgement since from what I can see, the rocks are much more slippery for us to handle, me, more so. So even if the rest of the best stuff are on the other side, we sadly, went back :-(. We missed these:

Lastly it was just another view point, the Kapay-aw Rice Terraces View Point

 After the trip, we had halo halo, which I think will replenish all the struggles we had to go through today.

For a day tour, we haven't exactly utilized every place possible to go, especially at Sumaguing so a rewind may take place in the future :-D

Tip: Ask for a guide who can speak Filipino. You'll thank me later.