Sagada, Mountain Province (Philippines)

I'm back, Steemers, and I decided to ditch the vlog idea.

I'm good at lots of things--running, working out, martial arts, smoking cannabis (or, as we call it here in the Philippines, "weeds")--but vlogging isn't one of 'em. Skills are developed, of course, but hey...I just don't feel like doing the whole vlog thing.

Anyway, lots of things have happened since I was last on here. A couple of months ago, my asawa and I went on an awesome trip to Sagada, Mountain Province, and below are some of the pictures we took.

Speaking of my asawa, you all know her, right? She's an active Steemer. The first person to recognize who she is gets 50 SBDs. (Just kidding.) :-P

Here we are at the rice terraces in Banaue (on the way to Sagada). I don't know how we made it there alive, but more on that later.

Banaue was nice.

When we finally got to Sagada, though, we were blown away by how awesome it truly is. There's lots to do there--hiking, caving, smoking sativa-dominant hash (cough, cough, wink, wink)--but we couldn't do all of it. We were on a fairly short trip.

These next two pictures were taken by...do you still not know who she is? ;-)

Kiltepan Peak is beautiful!

She's even more beautiful, though. Here we are hiking to Bomod-ok Falls.

The falls were nice, and even though it was hot, we weren't so "sticky" during the hike. Humidity is low in Mountain Province.

Some activities are dangerous, though. Below are some pictures of our descent into the pits of hell.

Well, hell isn't this pretty, but these caves are deadly! We went from Lumiang to Sumaguing Cave wearing nothing but tsinelas...and clothes.

It took us about five hours, and I had a bad fever the entire time. Our guides held lanterns to light our way, and they told us where to stick our hands, fingers, feet, and toes as we climbed slippery rock and made our way through tiny holes. Sadly, a teen died in one of the caves last year.

Now, earlier, I said that I don't know how we made it to Banaue alive.

I still don't. I don't know how we made it alive to Banaue or Sagada.

Why?

Well, the driver of the van we were on was crazy! He was driving as fast as possible through winding mountain roads, passing every vehicle in sight--even in the rain! Our tires skid a few times and I'm not quite sure how we didn't fly off a mountain.

We were passing vehicles at full speed on treacherous turns, where it's impossible to see if anyone is coming or not. All we had to rely on was the testimony of the driver in front of us, who told our driver via radio whether or not a vehicle was coming.

A fellow passenger threw up because of the way our driver was driving, but...hey, at least we got to Sagada quickly, right? Heh...

I love the Philippines.