Viaje Sagada | Lost in Echo Valley

The right trail is the right way. Sometimes, getting lost is the most exciting part of the adventure.

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Day 3 - October 31, 2011

Yesterday's cave connection adventure drained all our reserved ATP's in our bodies. All of us got dirty, some got sick, some got injured, but we all enjoyed it. It surely does own the crown of being the most difficult part of Sagada Adventure. By night, we had Robbie's birthday celebrated early, Byron of shinobbu.wordpress.com made him a cake and Josh of intsikboy.com was our bartender. It was a fun celebration until an unexpected visitor joined our party (waaah, tumatayo na naman balahibo ko).

We woke up at around 7:30 am. No one wants to talk about last night's spooky happenings (sobra ako kinilabutan, nanigas, nanginig sa mga kaganapang iyon). From bed to breakfast and from breakfast to Echo Valley to see their infamous hanging coffins. The distance of the Echo Valley from our place won't make your leg muscles to sore. In fact, we just walked it all the way. 


After passing by the Municipal Building, we turned right to their open court, then to the Centennial Bell.At little more walk and we reached the Episcopalian Church of St. Mary the Virgin. A typical tourist would reach the hanging coffins in just 25 to 30 minutes from the church but since we're not just typical tourists our group took an hour to reach our destination (we just can't resist the call of photo opportunities).

the Centennial Bell

Red n Blue

Episcopalian or Anglican Church of St. Mary

From the church, we walked a little more into the town's Catholic cemetery. We're just passing by the cemetery but the vibe of the Panag-Apoy Ritual was already pounding me. The locals were then painting their loved ones' tomb with white (in preparation for tomorrow's Panag-apoy Ritual).

Walk lovers

the cemetery

We continued walking until we reached the trail to the Echo Valley. Since we were walking on a photogenic place, (nice backdrop, enticing rocks and pine trees), we practically took the chance for more photo ops.

Jerome and Nikki, dwende pose

 Trained by Tyra

Town of Sagada seen from the Echo Valley

Let there be peace on Earth

Jay-R and I got excited too much to see the hanging coffins of Sagada so we went on while others were still posing and clicking. Darwin told us to just follow the steep trail down hill. If you shouted from that spot, echoes will surely follow.
 

the steep trail to hanging coffins (sobrang madulas dyan)

lost in the valley

We continued walking until the trail splits into two. Left or Right. We're very unlucky to choose the left path.

The trail was muddy and slippery, we can still hear others' voices still thinking that we're walking the right path to the hanging coffins. A few minutes had passed and the looks of the place were now strange and a little far from the cliffs, curiosity kicks in so we still proceeded 'til we reached the end of the trail.

A dry riverbed and a cave, that's what we found at the end of the trail. We can hear others' voices telling us that we took the wrong path. If I just have the time and courage, I would definitely explore the cave myself, but I don't have them at that time so we just went back to where we came from.

the cave by the end of the trail

I was at the doorstep of the cave.

Since five from our group were about to take the last trip to Baguio, they told me to visit the hanging coffins on the following day. Climbing up the cliff-side trail was more challenging than the cave connection. We grew tired a lot faster.

An hour had passed and we bid goodbye to other bloggers, our group were down from 12 to 7.  

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Viaje Sagada-Baguio Series, Sagada-Baguio Trip for 7D6N (Oct 29-Nov 4, 2011)

Viaje Sagada-Baguio |  Preview to my Sagada-Baguio Series - Preview

Viaje Sagada | The "Topload" Way to Sagada - Part 1

Viaje Sagada | No Sun at Kiltepan - Part 2
Viaje Sagada | I Survived Cave Connection - Part 3
Viaje Sagada | Lost in Echo Valley - Part 4
Viaje Sagada | Pongas Falls and the Death-defying Trek - Part 5
Viaje Sagada | Witnessing the Begnas Ritual - Part 6 
Viaje Sagada | The Might of Bomod-ok Falls - Part 7
Viaje Sagada | Blazing Rituals of Panag-apoy - Part 8
Viaje Sagada | Indigenous Flavors of Sagada - Part 9
Viaje Sagada | Soloing the Hanging Coffins of Echo Valley - Part 10
Viaje Sagada | Foodtrip in Sagada - Part 11

Itinerary | Sagada 

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