Warning to fellow parents: I think it is a must for each and every parent to first go to Sagada and go to the actual treks themselves before involving any other children or even spouse. See for yourself, take pics, videos, experience the trek before you get your entire family to jump in. Honestly, if I had gone trekking by myself to all the 3 treks… Pongas Falls, Balangigan Cave and Marlboro Country… the only child friendly trek would be Marlboro Country… I would not have taken my kids to Pongas falls nor Balangigan Cave. I would have waited until they were teenagers.

The rewards after having experienced and survived the risks. Our 8 year old 2nd son survived a 10 foot fall in the rice terraces… luckily no injury! (If that fall happened in the waterfalls, he would have died.) Again that 8 year old 2nd son and our 7 year old young daughter in the relatively safe Marlboro Country hills… almost had a tragic accident if it were not for my parental presence of mind. These 2 children were competing against one another on who gets what wild strawberry the guides and other grown ups point to. There was one particular instance when there was a strawberry bush in front of me and someone pointed that out. The 2 young kids scrambled, running almost diving to compete to see who gets the strawberry first… if they were left all to themselves, would have fallen to their DOOM as this was at the edge of a CLIFF they could not perceive at their short stature. But the cliff was evident to me as their dad at adult height. So I shouted out loud and was able to grab a hold off both of them! And showed them the folly of their ways how they may have fallen off hundreds of feet down.

The rewards? It’s the human mountain life experience. We urbanites have been sheltered for too long in the city with every attempt to make things safe and convenient for us. There are no tricycles, no jeeps, it’s all walk up and down. We are woken up to the true nature of things in the mountains. There are no life guards, there are no police men, there are no safety engineers… danger is everywhere, cliffs are everywhere and you must use your brain to learn it all… and the natives of Sagada have it in their instincts. Their children grow up strong and hardy and smart… those who survive, that is.

So coming to the end of our Sagada trip, what do I think of Sagada? Awesome! I love it. I want to come back, relax, take leisurely Marlboro Country type safe treks, adults only… maybe for planning, for recharging, rest and planning sounds good. Maybe next time check in to a hotel with broadband internet connections.

I make no excuses for my need for an internet connection, I’m a network administrator and I do need internet to manage servers that may require my attention.

End of 3 parts.

Sagada Danger: Water Fall visit. We went to Pongas waterfalls. You just don’t drive up and walk a bit to see a wonderful waterfall like we did in Kabigan Falls in Ilocos Norte, here in Sagada we drove via a forbidding cliff road that is just 1 car wide… and then walked through the rice terraces where my son fell… then walk / climb the side of a mountain where if you slip you can fall to your doom, and climb up the slippery hard rocks of the various stages / levels of water falls… where again if you slip, you can fall to your doom. All this you have to repeat going down the waterfalls back to your vehicle.

Sagada Danger: Caving. This is caving at its rawest. This is for the nature lover. Nature in all its natural glory. We chose the easiest cave… the Balangigan Cave. We asked for an easier cave with the least danger to slipping from our 3 young children and the guides recommended this cave. Allegedly the Sumaging cave has the more dangerous entrance and exit with slippery bat guano. Other even more thrilling caves is the likes of Crystal Cave where only the most experienced spelunker must dare.

Balangigan cave involves a road trip with a recommended SUV… not a car… must be higher than a car… in our case we used a Toyota Fortuner. Rough road. Single lane. Beside a cliff. If you come head to head with another vehicle, the two of you need to find a spot where the two of you can pass each other without the other one falling off the cliff. We reached the parking spot and it was now time to trek down to the cave entrance.

Trek down to Balangigan cave again involves walking down a treacherous cliff covered by foliage that scratches your arms and legs. You need to be very very careful, do not stray far from your guide as you need to judge where, what and how to step down on. You need all four limbs. There are times you need to sit down with your two arms holding on to dear life while your legs reach down to the next steps. Finally after 30 minutes to 1 hour depending on the age of your kids or your grand parents, you get to the mouth of the cave.

Balangigan cave itself. The entrance has this big forbidding rock formation. From a 2D point of view frontally, it seems unimaginable that your guides can walk nimbly up the rocks like mountain goats. We had 3 kids carried up. Then my wife had a guide hold her all the way. I climbed up like spiderman at an angle hugging the rock so my center of gravity was leaning on the rock and my hands were clambering on to dear life just like my feet were.

Note that I have zero caving / spelunking experience. I think my choice of wearing Crocs for shoes was a good idea.

In the cave, you need to stick close to your guide… you should never ever go caving without a guide… that would be suicide. In fact, we hired 5 guides. Almost 1 guide per person. Worth the expense for us city slickers who may find getting injured a far more expensive affair. One of our guides slipped while inside and one of our gas lamps got disassembled in the process. No harm done. Inside more spiderman like walking and cautious climbing.

From the point of view of a Sagadan like these guides, this is all child’s play. This is where they go as a group, maybe 8 to 10 years old where their parents tell them not to go, but they go and play there anyway. These caves and waterfalls is where they take their teenage romances escapades. From the Sagadan native point of view, there is nothing dangerous about these play areas. I even saw a waterfall guide… a girl, aged 8, guide a group up the dangerous Pongas falls. She was so pretty, so cute!

The idea I am toying about for the Sagadan tour organizers is that there are opportunities for making more money and making things safer for the tourists:

1. There should be caving / waterfalling / trekking briefings. You need to explicitly show people photos and videos of what to expect when trekking or caving or water falling. Know that weakling urban people are clumsy and unhealthy or lack exercise and may have problems with balance and may have zero experience, even in child hood or worse… obese and aging.

2. That it might be a good idea to have tourists sign wavers before going on a tour to protect yourselves from any blame or litigation.

3. That there is an opportunity to sell accident insurance, much like airlines today sell insurance while going on flights. This may turn out profitable, at the same time, you can have organized equipment like ambulances, nurses and doctors, first aid stations, stretchers, medicines / herbs… all were absent in all 3 treks we made.

I mean really… nature is all so thrilling… the danger… the actual reality that you can fall and injure yourselves gravely and possibly die is why “I survived Sagada” T-shirts are so popular. But there is profit in the assurance of safety and medical facilities on the spot for urban tourists just in case.

Go to part 03

Yo parents! If you look in the souvenir shops in Sagada or any other person who’s bought some Sagada T-shirts and worn it, maybe the popular message is “I survived Sagada” or “Sagada Survivor”. Check out the T-shirts we bought:

(insert pics here)

Sagada dangers are real. The thrill is there while “doing” it. Caving, Trekking, Water Falling, Rice Terraces walking. Sagada dangers being real is a point of view from us city born and raised weaklings. Yes, I admit we are spoiled urban domesticated weaklings of humans and are used to the comforts and levels of safety where slipping in someone’s shop you can sue the shop. That kind of suing for injury mindset is not in the consciousness of Sagadans.

Sagada warning: Sagada is for real people, real humans, or as the Igorots here quip: FBI – Full Blooded Igorots. Sagada is full of cliffs and dangers all around you… in the outskirts, in the town proper, in the water falls, in the caves, in the treks. The thrill is discovering just how human we can and should develop to be. Strong, hardy, with stamina, good sense of balance, a calibrated sense of what is dangerous. What we city slickers think is dangerous is child’s play or a teenage romantic date for a Sagada native.

The rice terraces, vegetable terraces, are indeed beautiful. You can get close to them and walk around them on the “pilapils” or walk ways… which may be cemented or just packed dirt. Some have railings, but most do not. The walks are long and tiring for city slicker standards. And if you are not paying much attention, you can and may fall down a 10 to 20 foot drop. And the Sagadan children just blissfully play around the terraces as this is their default environment.

Sagada Parental Duty: Our 2nd boy, my 8 year old boy FELL 10 feet from a dirt walk way down to a rice paddy in the terraces! My wife saw the live action from 200 feet away and screamed: “Mish fell!” First words that came out of me was, “Told you we should make 10 of him… then we’d have spares.” and when we were nearer… “Is he still alive?”

Good news. The rice paddy was all wet and muddy. There was an elderly woman farmer tending to the rice paddy and she had a hose of running water. My wife’s scream alerted the tour guide of the situation and he was immediately able to attend to our son. His left leg was all muddied and his left side had mud too, as well as some splashed on his face. He got hosed down and had to walk on his shorts alone with no pants and no shirt.

My son was lucky. No injuries. He got a bit shook up for the latter half of the day but watching some cartoons later on made him forget and we went on to 2 more adventures the next 2 days. Still, when we get back to Manila, my wife will take him to the Chiropractor just to be sure.

Go to part 02