Sagada Caves

An early start after a restless night being kept awake by the bloody roosters next door. The road trip to Sagada was scenic and beautiful. Our first stop was an early morning view of the Banaue Rice terraces, they say are 2000 years old and still an effective way of growing rice today. An extraordinary man made wonder.

We drove along the edge of the mountains on narrow windy roads that I imagine in rain would be highly dangerous. The mountains seemed to go on forever in the distance. There were some more stops of other rice terraces, we also drove through small mountain province villages. We arrived in a dusty hot Sagada after a ridiculous mountain drive. We had to pay an environmental fee and get a guide for the caves.

Our guide was called Steve and he led our way into the caves with a gas lamp. The caves were so busy as we were visiting on a Filipino holiday weekend. It was so busy the cave was lit up with all the other guides gas lamps.

I found the climb down the rocks hard as I was being overly cautious so not to damage my previously sprained ankle. It was very slippery but Steve made it look very easy. I got pretty dirty and there was bat poo all over the place.

The next part of the tour we did in bare feet. Leaving our shoes behind we walked into a mini foot spa and onto smooth rock. The formations were wonderful and looked like smooth caramel in the light. There were some pornographic formations; vagina, penis and some less sexual turtle, dinosaur foot and curtains.

Some cave jumping, rope climbing and watching our guide set his arm on fire with the dodgy gas lamp made the experience pretty extreme. Plus the Filipinos are so vocal about their emotions there were scared screams, cheers and songs of encouragement coming from every direction, which made the experience fun but took away from the silent dark imagery of the cave.

It was pretty exhausting but a lot of fun and a pretty extreme caving trip due to the lack of safety measures taken.

We walked down to the entrance of another cave to see the 400 year old coffins. The mummified bodies were placed in wooden coffins and left near the entrance of the cave as it was believed their souls could easily be freed and not confined by the ground.

On the way back we stopped off at Bontoc Museum and learnt about the cultures of the mountain people. We saw images and models of how their tribes lived. There were images of the head hunters victims and jewlerry made out of the beheaded's jaws and spinal cord.

We stopped off to watch the sunset below the mountains at Mt Pulis, where there was a massive statue of the virgin Mary. It was a stunning view.

Our final stop was at the Banaue rice terraces again to catch the last bit of sun light.