Sagada, Philippines

Honeymoon – Part Three

“I’m pretty sure I could bike that faster,” John stated, after discovering that it would take us 7 hours by bus to go approximately 50 miles.  30 minutes into our bus ride to Sagada, he was singing a different tune.  The roads were absurdly windy, taking us up narrow dirt roads with incredibly steep hills.  It was a smidge terrifying, but at least the ride came with stunning views of the rice terraces that the Philippines is famous for.  And he definitely could not have biked it faster – far too hilly :)

In Sagada we spent a little time hiking around, enjoying mountain views and fresh air.  And then, for some odd reason, we decided that spelunking sounded kinda fun.  There was a 2 hour version and a 4 hour version, but being the hard-core people that we are, we opted for the 4 hour version (what else were we going to do with our day?)  Even as our van pulled away to take us on this caving adventure, all we knew about what we were about to do is that it involved a cave and would take 4 hours.  Seriously.If I had known more, I probably wouldn’t have done it.  The adventure involved crawling through tiny spaces, being lowered down ropes (with no safety equipment whatsoever), climbing up slippery rocks, wading through underground pools of mineral water, and serious rock climbing.  The rocks were incredibly slippery, and I did 90% of it barefoot, wearing only my bikini bottoms and a t-shirt.  And honestly most of the time I was sliding down rocks on my butt because I was terrified of loosing my balance and falling 20 feet.  Only when we got through the harrowing trip did we realize that the 2 hour version only involved walking up and down a somewhat steep set of stairs to visit a few of the underground pools.  We definitely did it the hard way, and I must say we scored loads of badass points for doing so.  I have no photos of the inside of the caves, seeing as we were too wet and wobbly to stop for photo ops.  But you can see the outside of the caves, and the light at the end of the tunnel as we began to ascend.

After surviving that caving adventure, we enjoyed a more relaxed afternoon (including another cheap massage for John), and allowed our bodies time to heal.  Unfortunately, healing would become the theme of our last week on vacation, but we wouldn’t discover that until we reached San Fernando…More tomorrow :)