We rested up, gathered our things, and hit the road in the rental car. We headed north and passed the massive Quezon City, then suddenly everything turned to farmland with an abundance of rice plantations. I was impressed with how quickly the transition happened, I missed all of the ride north last time during the overnight bus. We had a 9 hour drive ahead, and much of the trip would be visually new to both of us. We took a quick stop and grabbed some food and refilled the toll cards, then back up north we went.
We made some good distance and speed on the tollway north of Metro Manila, the fastest I’ve seen a vehicle go anywhere in the Philippines. There were lots of stops to charge us and we were confused a lot of the time, and I guess at some point the road turned into the T-Rex, I mean T-Plex, before we crossed into the Benguet province, and started heading straight up the mountains. We took Kennon Road, a twisty mountain road that ran parallel to the Bued River and up into Baguio. When the road was under construction in 1903 it was considered one of the most difficult and expensive civil engineering projects of its time. Before making it into the town, we drove up what they creatively called the “zigzag road” for all the switchbacks, a road feature I’m quite fond of. I jokingly told Mark that Baugio was “Mountain Manila” and once we reached all the traffic he understood. I have since read that Baugio has the worst air pollution of the major cities in the Philippines, probably due to the smog getting trapped in the mountains. Tons of houses with metal roofs sprawled over the mountains of Baugio, which was interesting to see, but we needed to get out of there. After crawling through the city, we started journeying further up the mountain to the north of town, starting with a more impoverished appearance, despite being higher up the mountain. We got on Bontoc road and had a great time, seeing many terraced hills, and stopping for a lot of photos. We stopped at the “highest point” of the Philippine Highway System, though as of writing this I have discovered that there is a “new highest point”. It was packed with people so much that walking was difficult, I slapped a sticker on the sticker pillar, and we appreciated the view. This seemed like a decent place to make Mark try Balut, though not too much was consumed on his part, albeit a memorable place. I was so cold up there, I forgot what that felt like after roasting day to day at sea level, and busted out the puffy jacket that I originally just brought for Batur back in Bali.
In the mountains of the Philippines, Mountain Dew seems to be the drink of choice. The bottles, manufactured in their own Philippine plant, appear radioactively green, unlike anything I’ve seen. The bottles are turned into art and decorations, as well as spelling out letters in the chain linked fences of the schools. There was a nice parking spot over a hillside along the way and we stopped and Mark tried some food, that we still don’t know what it was. He asked for one, and she gave it to him, and he asked how much, to which he was told they cost 6 Pesos, or about 10 cents. He asked, what could you honestly get at home for 10 cents, which we both agreed, was absolutely nothing. We pressed on and drove for a while until the sun started to go down, and I demanded we pull over and watch it disappear behind the mountains with the clouds bursting with color. We still had a long way to go, up and down the mountains, twisting and turning but it was absolutely dark out, and we were certain there was beautiful stuff that we were unable to experience. We finally made it to the turn-off to Sagada and we saw lots of touristy signs pointing in the general direction, and I was filled with a bad feeling. I told Mark before that there are plenty of guest houses in Sagada and we should be able to find a place to stay, but upon arrival I realized this was going to be difficult. A large Christmas setup was erected in the town center and Taylor Swift blared over a loudspeaker as tons of people clogged up every inch of standable space. Apparently the height of travel in the Philippines was between Christmas and New Year’s, exactly when we arrived. I was starving and went and got charged too much for food and was already defeated as we spent the next several hours trying to find a place to crash for the night. I think we went to about 10 locations, called 10 locations, and tried another 15 with non-working numbers, only to be told that every place was at maximum occupancy, as large white vans that were once filled with people lined every parking spot of every guest house. The first person to answer and respond with vacancy was an hour and a half back the direction we had just came from. It got pretty late and I was thinking of just sleeping in the car when Mark found a room that had 4 beds in it. We showed up exhausted and ready to crash out and they asked us if we wanted coffee, a resource that grows all over the Mountain Province, and we just insisted that beds were all we wanted. It was nice and cool in the room though, and I slept wearing some long sleeves and pants, which was pleasant at the very least.
Continue to the next page for additional photos from the day