FN Blog - Seven heads are better than one!

First Sagada stop: Rocky Inn Cafe. Left of the uphill dirt road, set deep into heavily wooded area by about 500 meters, and little far from the “main district.” Venue to many a local teleserye and movie taping. We just checked out the place, the menu, the rooms…and agreed to do lunch there the following day. We already had accommodations waiting for us at…

…Log Cabin Cafe.

Our room had fresh carnations! (Yes, that is a toilet paper roll carton giving telescopic effect to the shot… Necessity, the mother of invention, is joined by a cousin no one ever talks about: Boredom, the mother of inanity.)

Let the cam whoring begin…

While Koop was getting some recuperative shuteye, I trawled the smalltown roads until I came upon the famed Yoghurt House. Koop later followed, and we brunched on…

…the richest yogurt I had ever set my lips on - thick as whipped cream. Topped with granola, strawberry preserves, banana, and brown sugar. Dinner that night was the well attended Saturday Night Buffet at the Log Cabin, prepared by a French chef who, years ago, went to Sagada on vacation and just kind of never left.

Brunch the next day was at Rocky Inn, an enclave with log cabin-style accommodations, a well manicured garden, and a vast orange grove.

After the chow…

and a few swigs of Happy Water…

IT WAS TIME TO EXPLORIMAFY!

Set around the dining area are a few dap-ays. In real Ifugao villages, dap-ays are sacred sites formed by rocks in a circle and a hearth at the center. It is here that village elders and the men talk issues or concerns. Women weren’t allowed to participate in these dap-ay sessions. So, naturally, in the name of all who shared my gender, I set foot on the thing.

Then run to place while haphazardly pressing Clean and Clear oil-blotting sheet on nose, sit, strike the rehearsed close-lipped smile, while looking as if oh-so-not-hinihingal.

Then we huffed it to the orange grove, which follows the natural landscape of the valley and cliffside. A good post-meal glut workout.

(Orange ba talaga ‘to? Parang mutant calamansi…)

Koop, with his “I’m soooo pro” Nikon D200 SLR, takes a shot of my totally hammed-up “haciendera y heredera con calamansi” pose. (Damn right I didn’t include that shot in here! I plead the fifth!) But 95 percent of the pictures here are all from my four-digit sticker priced Canon PowerShot.

Pounding more pavement through cliffsides…

beautiful rocky terrain…

quaint watering holes…

behind which is a house with rentable rooms (the view from there).

May branch pala dito ang Bates Motel… Norman, yoohoo! Let’s work on your anger issues…

Dinner was at Yoghurt House, which, at night, transforms into a slice of rustic Bohemia.

Rice with sauteed veggies, topped with sunny side up and meat loaf — the best a la carte meal I’ve had in Sagada thus far. No final verdict, though, as many on my list of where-to-eat joints in Sagada remain un-ticked. Three days and two nights are just too short a stay. I do intend to make a 2nd trip before the year ends, maybe a 3rd and 4th trip in 2008.

Yoghurt House, also the land of the laid back and cute foreign poker players.

ETD the next was crack of dawn, since we wanted to make it back to Manila before dark.

How very “Exorcism of Emily Rose.”

The morning fog lifts like theater curtains revealing a sun-dappled morning…

The last remaining panoramas of breathtaking nature before we roll out…

“Yeah, yeah, nature, nice. Need. Coffee. Now.” Three hours later on the mountain pass: “Wala bang bilihan ng three-in-one dito?” (The brows under those shades are starting to head-butt each other.)

Are we there yeeeeeeeeeeeet?

But dang it, soon as we hit the city, the thirst for coffee drained out of me and I wanted to turn around and head back the way we came. My Buhay Baboy lifestyle amidst all those cliffsides, all that fog, and all those calamansi pretending to be oranges - I want all that back!