Sagada Epiphanies..Harhar!!

According to Wikipedia, Sagada is a municipality in the mountain of Mt. Province nestled in the middle of a valley. Now who cares about that?? All I know is that we had to endure that bumpy ride along those narrow mountain tracks for some more hours after we stopped over at Banaue. And I thought we were already near in the morning eh?? My butt hurt with all the sitting and staying inside the van already felt like an overwhelming task. Don’t get me wrong though. It was awesome beholding the sight of mountains after spectacular mountains. It was already late afternoon when we were welcomed by Mama Mary (yep, that’s the name of the owner) to her humble abode: the Residential Lodge.

My hair’s sticky and it’s more than 24 hours already since I last took a bath but we were instructed to just leave our things and change clothes quickly for the 1st day’s itinerary. I made a quick dash for the loo and it’s now official: Sagada is the coldest place I’ve been to in the world. Why did I say so?? First of all the weather is cold it reminded me of the time when I was in Gumi-si Korea but the difference here is the water coming from every faucet is sooooooooooo cold. Second the road going to the area is rocky. Hmmm, Rocky road is a flavor of an ice cream right?? Hehehe. Third, the people of the area are more familiar with speaking English than Tagalog aside from the vernacular. Now the natural English speaking people live in cold areas up North right?? Wahaha. Now this last one’s lame. :P

We have very limited time left so off we went to our first destination. But I’m not ready to talk about that yet. The very purpose of this post is to tackle something about the realizations I had on my first day. And those are in my simplest words (1) Discover Pinas and (2) SOS.

(1) Discover Pinas. What with all the cheap rates being offered by different airlines these days going to other countries, most of us are tempted to grab these opportunities. Yeah I said “us” because I’m not going to be a hypocrite here. :P But like I said, I realized there are still a lot of places here in Pinas that I haven’t been to and are truly worth visiting. Take for example this website where we found the Sagada package (http://discoverpinas.multiply.com, now they really should give me something for promoting their website haha!!), you’ll see a lot of hidden beauties to boast for. Yezz! I support Philippine tourism. KC for President. Wahaha!!! J/K. :D

(2) SOS. The mountain view is absolutely stunning. No doubt about that. Take a look for example in one of these shots captured by my 8-megapixel phone (Samsung Innov8) while passing along the Cordillera, isn’t it a beauty?? A post-card worthy even??

But then again there are times when I would look closely then see brownish spots that area supposed to be green. Yup, you know what I’m talking about. Save the trees. I will not go at lengths discussing the importance of this coz I’m sure all of us already know about that but I would just like to share my personal advocacy. You see ever since college I’m the type of person who feels sorry for wasted papers. In Tagalog we call it nanghihinayang (see this for my post on Tagalog words without direct English translation). I make sure that all the bond papers that I am using are fully used back to back. Its either I use the other side for computations during math problem-solving or just any other use. Up to now, I still keep copies of printed papers (e.g old resumes) here in my room for cases when I need to make a draft or plan instead of using new papers. Even shopping paper bags I keep them. ^^ And the other material that I feel “hinayang” for are plastic bags. These ones are not biodegradable and we ought to re-use them if they’re still in good condition. So now you know the two unnecessary items that are adding spaces here in my already cramped and messy room. :P

Wow!! It’s such a relief knowing that even if I do splurge on some things (clothes, shoes, etc.), I do have things which I do save up for. Note: It’s purely coincidental that papers and plastics are related to my addiction of shopping. Hahaha!!! Take note also that I do not say these things to proclaim myself as such and such. I believe that those are just very little efforts on my part in order to save our planet. Remember, God gave us these treasures for us to enjoy and not to destroy. ^^

Let me just share again another view I loved during the ride, the lakes!! It is better viewed from above and this shot below didn’t give much justice to the actual view because we’re moving but here it is anyways.

The first thing that came to my mind is Paradise. This is my exact interpretation of Paradise. Aaah, its lovely!! God made the earth beautiful. Psalms 139: 14 “Your works are wonderful. As my soul is very well aware.” :)

And there you have it. Some reflections of a single girl in a close to 20-hr land drive up North. I mean seriously, if you're in a van surrounded with 4 pairs of couples what will you think about?? Hahaha!!! Up next: cave spelunking. Woot!!! :D