About 30 minutes walk off the main town’s road, just before the entrance of Sumaging cave, is a nice little cafe called, Gaia. Its theme lives up to its name - organic organic healthy hippy happydom shit. Not my brand but, Gaia, is just my spot.
It rains in the afternoon here in Sagada, and it makes the night air colder. This happens here when summer is about to end, and the monsoon is kicking in. Though it gets gloomy, everything still seems to be healthy here - the food, the people, the vibe - but me. I've always been wimpy with cold. Sometimes it gets too cold here, and it pierces right through. I snuggle with the warmth I thought I had handy, but that too, got cold. About 30 minutes walk off the main town’s road, just before the entrance of Sumaging cave, is a nice little cafe called, Gaia. Its theme lives up to its name - organic organic healthy hippy happydom shit. Not my brand but, Gaia, is just my spot. We hung out at Gaia for a while after our Lumiang-Sumaging Cave Connection guided trip. (Guides are mandatory – if, you know, you wanna get out alive.) I'm glad that we did, for they have one of the best hot chocolates in town. The smell of thick black tablea (round native cocoa bars) was a taste that hit home all the way back from childhood. The staff also offered their thick woven sheets, seeing that I was shivering my ass off. Gaia was a heartwarming end to an adrenaline-filled day. It also has a pretty overlooking view of Sagada. But that particular afternoon, we can barely see the town. Everything was covered in mist. My heart was cold, and my eyes misty, too. It's too damn chilly. Nights, although piercingly chilly, are still starry here in Sagada. Summer is really about to end and - at home, back in the city - typhoons are coming soon.
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I got food poisoning in Sagada. That alone tops the surprises which our Sagada leg was packed of. It started on our very first day when, as we usually do on first days, we headed out on a mission: to find something that’ll keep our stay in Sagada warm, and find a better accommodation. We hung out at one of the bars, and luckily, there we met other travelers. We hooked up with them for the rest of the afternoon, and then continued the party until after dinner at the rooftop of where we eventually ended up staying after all, at Residential Lodge Inn. (Do not ever agree to get the ground floor rooms at the back. Except for that, it’s a commendable place to stay in Sagada.) It was a good first night. Cold and starry, but the company of fellow strangers kept the night warm. It was a party of a Spanish couple, a Jew, Alex - an American, and me – a Filipina. Random bits and stories about our lives, travels, and our countries – made fun of equally – were exchanged. The conversation flowed from bullshit to insightful as the night grew deeper: from Matisyahu to Asian population and Filipino English, which somehow ended up on shared bread dipped in strawberry jam. This is a fun part when traveling: meeting strangers, and connecting with them. The kind of connection that makes you see the world through their eyes. The more interesting part of the night for me though is when I started seeing my country – as an extension of my identity – through their eyes. As the night grew deeper, the breeze too was getting colder. And somewhere in the conversation, I started feeling like a stranger - maybe more foreign than my company of foreigners. I thought it was odd feeling that way – in my own country, needless to say. I wallowed in a thought: “being a stranger is not always being in a new place. Sometimes, it’s the company you keep that makes you feel one.” Traveling somehow makes you widen your understanding of home. In between the dead silences of the night, everybody felt the piercing cold. We had to say goodbye to each other. Another fun part when traveling: connecting with people through fleeting greetings and goodbyes. The next afternoon, we hung out at the same bar for lunch. It was raining outside and we had nothing much to do, but wait 'til it stops. Luckily, we found some form of entertainment to pass the afternoon by: girl bonding a la manicure y pedicure style. The kid who was hanging out at the bar kept us company all the while. The kid’s mom, who mans the bar, warned us about her – that she’s obnoxious. We get her, we assured the mom, and I think – while watching me paint her kid’s nails – she knew what we meant. And since no one else was there to serve anyway, the mom too hung out with us. She broke the ice by sharing some, of course, gossip. Like, how a lot of celebrities from the city hung out at the bar, and how low key they get when in Sagada. We then ended up talking about Sagada’s reputation as the pot capital, and on this, she had insightful stories.
It was sometime late last year (2013) when a big PDEA raid shook the peace of this rustic little town, apparently. There were a lot of theories on why that happened, but the consensus of the town is that the whole “drug raid” was blown-up and unnecessary, as it was unfounded. It was then that Sagada started getting tight on the pot trade - whatever form it came and went - if there ever was one. Interestingly, about the same time last year, there was big news circulating in the city circle about a raid in Sagada. The news came as a shock for an activist back in the university was rumored to have been killed during an air strike initiated by the Philippine Air Force after the alleged discovery of a Communist rebel camp. This news bit is shady in all sense, but firstly, because of one simple fact: Sagada is a peace zone since 1989. A lazy rainy afternoon turned out to be more interesting than I expected. That's another fun thing: how traveling connects the dots, as equally, as it creates more questions. That night, I didn’t sleep well. I spent all night puking my brains out – on two orifices. I’ll spare the details, but let’s leave it at: getting sick while traveling makes you miss mama’s home-cooked care. That night, I missed home. |
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