One of us almost drowned: My Banaue – Sagada – Baguio 2015 Recap Part 2

Morning has broken… and it’s freaking cold!

Mornings in Sagada (and in Banaue) are sooo cold and foggy. But oh so beautiful.

Our driver, Kuya Boyet, told us the previous night that he’d wake us up at 4:30am so we can catch the sunrise. Sunrise viewing in Mt. Kiltepan was originally planned for our third day (Saturday) but we thought, if the storm arrives on Saturday we won’t be able to enjoy the sunrise so why not do it on Friday instead, just to be safe?

Well, a few of us (myself included) did wake up at around 4, 4:30 but no one actually got up at that time. I woke up and tried to hear if the others were already awake but since they were still sleeping (even snoring haha), I went back to bed and slept until past 6am. So sunrise viewing was out of the equation, at least for that day.

At around 6:30am, all of us were already up and since it was so chilly and foggy and we’re all in good spirits (Sagada can do that to you), we decided, hey, why don’t we walk and have breakfast at Gaia’s Cafe? At the time, it seemed like a really good idea, great even. It’d be like a light exercise, right? Wrong. So wrong.

From the house up to Gaia, it took an hour and a half of hiking with frequent stops for selfies and groufies and scenery shots. Yes, an hour and a half walk just for breakfast. Kuya Boyet did tell us to get in the car 10 minutes into the walk but we smugly replied with, “Okay lang yan, kaya namin ‘to.” (That’s okay, we can do this.) Fools.

I probably lost pounds from that hike. We were wearing jackets, sweaters, shawls, when we started walking. Halfway through, we took those off.

If not for the beautiful scenery, that hike would have been wasted because damn, Gaia Cafe & Crafts disappointed us BIG TIME.

A little background on the cafe. It’s this quaint little place that boasts splendid view and vegan food choices and if you go on Tripadvisor, you’ll see that it’s a 2014 recipient of Tripadvisor’s Certificate of Excellence. Recently, it also became more popular because of, again, That Thing Called Tadhana. Angelica Panganiban and JM De Guzman’s characters had coffee in this cafe. Also, if you check it out on Tripadvisor, you should see a lone 1-star rating coming from… me. That makes me feel very much like a black sheep but also frustrated. I couldn’t, still can’t, understand how this place received great reviews.The food was overrated, the brewed coffee and hot choco were diluted with water and the place had the slowest service ever. Emman ordered one muffin and it was the last to arrive among all orders. It’s not like they baked it first so why??? It was so bad that Rein decided to cancel his order (salad) and then a few minutes later it arrived because the other staff was not informed of the cancellation. Le sigh…

After this terrible experience, we contemplated on just buying food from the market and cooking it in the house. There would be waiting involved but maybe the food will taste better and at least, we had only ourselves to blame. But we were also thinking of the exhausting day we have ahead of us so in the end, we decided to just grab ready-to-eat food in Masferre’s.

We came back to the house to prepare for our next stop — the Bomok-od Falls aka Big Falls.

The trek to the Big Falls through the Fedelisan Rice Terraces takes 45 minutes to an hour, depending on how many selfies and groufies you manage to take in between steps. Hehe. Some find this trek strenuous and I would agree but I still think this was easier than the previous day’s trek to Echo Valley and Underground River. My knees and legs cursed me for that. With this one, there was a clear trail of concrete steps so I wasn’t very wary of slipping. There’s still danger of falling down, especially on steep parts but with the help of a walking stick (which the guides give to you before the jump off), you’re good to go. Also, we were better dressed for this trek compared to the previous day’s.

As we went down the trail, we met people on their way, all looking glum and tired as if the trek had sucked the life out of them. Not an encouraging sight. And as we were going down, Emman asked random people “Brokenhearted ka ba?” (Are you brokenhearted?) in reference to That Thing Called Tadhana (again). Some smiled, some laughed, some were indifferent, some gave him weird looks. I sometimes wish I didn’t mention that movie to him. He ended up asking that question from day 1 to 3, until we parted ways.

After 48 years of trekking, semi-fearing for my life because holy cow some parts were really steep and falling down would mean sure death, selfie-ing and groufie-ing, we saw this.

It was beautiful, yes. But I’ve seen better and so have my companions. That’s okay, though. We were there to enjoy. And so after a short rest by the rocks, we went in the super duper cold waters of Bomok-od Falls.

AND I MEAN COLD.

It’s not the type of cold that’s refreshing and decreases once you’re in the water for a longer time. Nooo. We stayed in the water for probably 30 minutes, literally chilling like the masochists we are, and the water did not turn warm AT ALL. It was just cold through and through.

But before we left the water, something funny (and in hindsight, dangerous and scary) happened. This would later become our favorite story to talk about amongst each other and with other people (I told my mom and sisters).

Rein, Elaine, and Mike are good swimmers. Mike, in particular, is so good that he wanted to try diving from one of the edges on the other side of the falls. Gelo, Arlene, Gigi, Claire and I are not swimmers. I don’t know how to swim and I’m short so I can only stay in the shallow parts of the water. Victoria didn’t want to swim so she just watched. Emman can swim plus he’s also competitive. He saw Mike and Kuya Boyet get to the edge without too much trouble so he wanted to get up, too. He tried all sorts of ways to do this but no can do. As this was happening, the four of us girls (Arlene, Gigi, Claire and I) were on the sidelines, just leaning on the rock, laughing at his failed attempts. Gelo left the water just a few minutes before, I think. Rein and Elaine were basically making us wish we can swim. And Thomas (remember Chinese guy who just slept the whole day?) was about to jump in the water. He gestured for us to join him but we just smiled and told him to go on. We didn’t know for sure if the guy knows how to swim but when someone asks you to join him in diving, you’d have to assume that he does, right?

A few minutes after laughing and booing at Emman’s last attempt at climbing, Mike finally dived in and swam so fast. I clapped and cheered along with the girls, even shouting “Go Mike! Wooooo!” Mike was so good! And then a few seconds later, we saw him, carrying a panicking, almost-drowned Thomas. WTF.

Later, on our way to the jump off site, we talked about the incident. It scared our guide, it weirded us out (Why would you invite us in if you didn’t know how to swim?!), made us laugh so hard (especially at the cheering we made for Mike), and earned the nickname “Lito Lapid” for Mike because he’s a hero and a real action star. Leon Guerrero!!!

The climb back was definitely harder (by then we understood the glum faces we saw earlier) but we were still in good spirits and it would stay that way until the next day. It was around 5pm when we left for Lake Danum to watch the sunset.

It took another short trek to get to the site, and when we arrived, I said to myself, is this a golf course?

The actual sunset viewing happens at the campsite, some more meters away from the lake. We went there and boom, PEOPLE. Like, loads of them. It felt like there’s a music festival and we’re waiting for the first artist to come out. And it was just 6-ish. The sun’s still way up in the sky and it would probably take 30 minutes before it sets. We took more selfies, groufies (getting good at it now), Emman photobombed in other group photos, and we repeatedly asked each other, “Are we really waiting for this?”

Sunsets are amazing… but when there’s tons of people waiting for it with their cameras and phones, it just isn’t as magical, you know? And we were hungry. We didn’t have lunch. So we left and went to Masferre’s for dinner. Best decision ever.

After dinner (fuss-free this time, thanks to Masferre’s cooked meals), we looked for beer, bought some pasalubong, and went back to the house to freshen up.

We ended the night with beers around the bonfire. It was a really good day.