Last April 5 to 10, I joined the Administrators' Outing and Retreat held in Baguio, going through Sagada and Banaue. This particular outing was quite long for me because I had to miss six days of my Insanity workout and my routine Balanga-life. The good thing about it was that I got to be acquainted with my administrator-colleagues in Letran. Plus, I got to see places and learn culture which felt foreign to me.
I learned more about the Igorot culture, got to eat at tacky places in Sagada, trekking, long nights by the bon fire, and dinner and drinks with the Dominican priests.
One thing I noticed are the red stains by the streets of Banaue. Apparently these are spits of residents chewing nganga. Most of them chew these red seeds concocted with a leaf and this powder (sorry, I wasn't paying attention to the tour guide as he explained this to us).
The rice that they serve in Sagada is red or brownish, the sort that you buy as a special rice in the supermarket. And I also noticed that the chips are over-inflated, maybe something to do with the air pressure? I don't know.
The vegetables and fruits that were served to us were oh-so-fresh that if one was going to go on a vegetable&fruit-restricted diet, it wouldn't be a problem.
I didn't feel comfortable with the heights and the long drives overlooking the cliffs along the highways situated in the mountains. Ugggghhh. I swear I felt we were going to fall off any second.
My dad used to take us hiking along the mountains of Mariveles, and I was always the one with the fear of heights compared to my sister. I still felt the same whenever we would go trekking. I always reminded myself, "Don't look down. Don't look down.". This eventually would make me look as if I was an old fart hanging on to dear life whenever we would go through a tricky or a steep trail.
Ofcourse, I wasn't able to join the cave adventure in Sagada because that wasn't really my thing. But Sagada in general is a mystical place, like somewhere a horror film would be set, especially after hearing anecdotes from this woman who owns the town's museum. You should visit that place to complete the Sagada experience as much as you would go cave-exploring as she's quite a memorable character, speaking in eloquent English as she tells of her native Igorot collection ranging from baskets, beads to animal skeletons and weapons. That woman is armed with this dry, spontaneous sense of humor which cracked us up.
In Banaue, what was memorable to me was when I shared bottles of beer with a colleague in the hotel bar. We really got to have a great chat about life and love, and got to whine (just a bit!) about work. We also got to speak with two Canadian women and tell them about places to visit in the Philippines as they were going around the country for two weeks.
Thanks to Letran I got to visit the northern area of the Philippines!
When I got back from the trip, our house helpers posted something in the fridge door:
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