the hills are alive...

aren't you glad i'm now going to tell you about my wonderful 5 days in the mt. province?
i remember when we were in grade school, we studied the region, including the tribes, the symbols, the dances, the rituals. but it's really very different when you see it all for yourself. we left early morning on jan. 5 on a bus to besao, 8 hours away. before you start panicking about the long trip, it's a really very entertaining trip, because there are so many sights! beautiful mountains all around! for those who've been to sagada, besao is just 30 mins. away. we passed through towns of benguet, then mt. province. can you believe i had used up half of my 256mb mem card even before we arrived in sagada?! clicking away at the mountainside and rice terraces and people along the way.

the view from the highest highway peak in the philippines (elevation: 7,400 ft!)


i was also able to taste passion fruit (locally, masaplora) for the first time. good stuff!


it was my first time in sagada, but i didn't get to explore the place during the stopover. i will definitely be back...anyone want to join me?
we arrived in besao at 4 pm, and we went straight to besao national high school in kin-iway to meet the teachers there. this was to be the venue of our 2 1/2-day teachers' training program. after some orientation, we walked over to a nearby house that would be our quarters for the duration of our stay. it's a newly-built house, with pine walls and ceilings! we found out soon enough why--the weather up there is really cold, coupled with strong winds that, from the sound of it, are like the winds when it's signal #3 in manila. inside, we stayed warmer. but still needed our thick blankets.
view from the balcony


the next few days saw us going from the house to the school where we spent the entire day, teaching elementary and high school teachers. giving them tips on how to better teach their students, for the most part. i also had a chance to go up a hill and pick pine cones off the grass. as well as visit the anglican church there (no catholics) atop another hill.

st. benedict's


one of the classes went to a lemon and orange orchard nearby, where they found this enormous lemon! it was about six inches long--like a small papaya.


on jan. 8, after the closing program, we headed to panabungen, 2 hrs away from kin-iway, the remotest part of besao, via very narrow, rocky roads. as breathtaking as the actual ride were the rice terraces that were everywhere.


upon our arrival, we set down our bags in one of the houses, then proceeded on our trek. our goal: to catch the sunset that they say looks wonderful in these parts.
along the way, we went up "calvary", where there's this bell (some 100 m away from the actual church), then on top is the cross.


i finally saw tirad pass, although, just the mountain from a distance. we stopped several times on different hills to look around and see...more hills and mountains--we viewed as far as abra and ilocos sur from there!


when we arrived at the hill where they said we could get a good view of the sunset, we settled on the grass to await it.

me, ma'am ping, mang jose, liezel, mariel, rommel, sir jimmy, bernice, dondon

sadly though, it wasn't as glorious as it would have been if we came in march or april, they say. but wow, it was still good.


on our way down, we passed by the house of one of the teachers, where we tasted tapuy (rice wine). it's made by combining cooked malagkit and yeast, and letting it ferment for at least three days. we tasted the 3-day old tapuy, that was sweet, with a bit of a kick.


i also saw firsthand the itag, seasoned, smoked, and dried pork that they mix in the pinikpikan, a chicken dish. i tasted pinikpikan for the first time in besao, though thankfully, without pork. it's good, a bit like tinola. though i couldn't help but feel pity for the chicken, that is "killed softly", beaten at that.
we picked kamote tops along the way, for dinner. aside from bangus and rice, we had sakolati wine for dinner, made especially in panabungen. it's sweet and full-bodied, made from a red flower that grows wild.
we marveled at the night sky which was bright with thousands of stars! it was really cold that night, and we had to catch a very early jeepney ride back to kin-iway, so i didn't sleep much. we headed out around 4 am, on the same rocky roads. after 1 1/2 hours, we were on the bus back to baguio. we stopped for 30 minutes at sagada, where we couldn't help but walk around and squeeze in some photo ops.
with liezl around st. mary's parish


upon our approach to baguio city, i couldn't help feeling sad... much like the way i feel at the exit of NLEX when i go home to manila. the air in the mt. province is so clean and crisp. though it's cold, it's a different cold from baguio. i can only liken it to the fresh, cool waters from a waterfall.
i also marveled at the resilience of the people i met, the kankanaey (that is also their dialect), who make the most of what they have, and are so blessed with so much from nature--just from the plants that grow wild all over the area, that they cook, and taste delicious!
seeing the mountains made me appreciate my place among God's creation, and meeting these people lessened my self-centeredness. it made me see that there really is so much more in the world that i have not seen and experienced. and i didn't find it in any metropolitan city, but in the simple life up there.