Travel Philippines: Sagada - Echo Valley Walking Tour - Adventure Trail

Welcome to the beautiful town of Sagada, in the mountain province of the Philippines and at least a 12hours bus or mixed transport trip from Manila.

On this day after having done the spelunking in Sumaging Caves the previous day ( https://steemit.com/travel/@chrisdavidphoto/travel-philippines-sagada-spelunking-sumaguing-caves ) I decided to try one of the Walking tours called the Aventure Trail.

The writing on the flyer is a little difficult to read so have type it below:

2.Adventure Trail - 3 hours trek to Echo Valley Hanging Coffins, passing by the Church of St. Marys the Virgin, enter the Sagada Underground River. Includes forest trails, river crossing before reaching Bokong Waterfalls.
Guide Fee p1000 for 10 visitors or less.

Thats about $25AU or $20US for up to 10 people - I travelled alone here so I shoulder the whole cost in tour.

Just like the previous tour I decided just to use my phone (Samsung S7 Edge) to capture both photos and videos to keep things lightweight. These walking tours are on mixed terrain so the lesser abled might need more time to get through.
So starting off the day here's the view from my hotel. I love how peaceful and quiet this place is.

I get greeted by a supercute dog before grabbing some breakfast and waiting for my guide.

The dish being corned beef with the locally grown purple rice you see in most of the fields in the area.

With my guide we start our walk. First part is the ** Church of St. Marys the Virgin** .

The guide offers to take some photos with my phone throughout the walk and generally custom to add a tip at the end of the tour. Some countries like Australia don't grow up with the American tipping culture and these guides make so little so its good to add what you think they deserve on top at the end. My particular tour guide has only very recently resumed work after a bad fall accident in the caves broke his leg some months back.

Walking further from the church we pass through the local graveyard and into some beautiful views of the town offering a number of good photo opportunities.

Continuing further into the mountain I was told the cliff to the left is where I can go rock climbing and rappelling as one of the other activities here. Its about 30m high and chages p800 for one or p400 per person if there's two or more. I wished I had more time here on my trip here to add it on another day.

Hanging Coffins So now we are at the site that brings many wonders about this place due to one of the cultural practices of the local tribes that include hanging the coffins off the cliffs instead of burial. The traditional practice used smaller coffins as the dead where smoked in a seated position until they shrivelled and shrank to fit in. The modern ones which are only a few due to influence of the church use full size coffin with dead lying down. Easy to tell which is which. They use rope and ladders to get them there and still amazing how they have managed to do it especially on some of the cliffs. This place is full of limestone formations and caves.

We venture further and you can find some coffee beans growing around. There's a small civet population here and one of those few places you can try that famous civet coffee. Im a coffee lover but personally refuse to try it knowing the process of where its been.

There's some walking, hopping and jumping on stepping stones or if your too lazy just walk through the water.

Time for one of those selfies.

The Underground River
Now its time to walk follow the river through caves. I forgot to bring my torch so used the guides. These places bring an amazing adventure experience and beautiful views.

Caves are dark and awesome.

So now were on that forest trail and river crossing part Can be a little slippery so need to take time here. Definately one of those places all nature lovers will enjoy.

![20170117_152145.jpg]( Had to fit that selfie in

There is a reason its called the river crossing.

Bokong Waterfalls
The last on the list for this circuit is stopping by the Bokong Waterfalls which can allow for a rest, swim and some photo opportunities .

Walking back you get magnificent views of the rice fields. They grow purple rice in them which you can buy in a number of places around town as well as locally made fruit wines.

The trail brings us back onto the toads where we pass a number of beautiful limestone formations mixing with housing.

That brings us to the end of this post. If you like my work please upvote it and let me know what you think. It takes much more time for writing posts like these so its nice knowing if I should continue on and things I can improve on for the next ones.
Have a great weekend