It was our last morning in Sagada. The next stop on our trip was Banaue which is located southeast of Sagada, about 3 1/2 hours by jeepney. Banaue is the starting point to visit the famous rice terraces, which we were dying to see. We had breakfast at our new favorite spot Yoghurt House and ordered the Hiker's Delight again. Lori's affair with Yakult came out again, I admit I was getting a little jealous - ha! It helped ease her stomach and made her go to the bathroom less frequently, so before we left Sagada Lori made sure to stock up on Yakult. This however did take a little hunting as we moved away from bigger cities.
We threw our backpacks on top of the jeep and to our surprise, the Dutch couple, Peter and Jose, showed up to ride with us to Banaue. The unfortunate thing about jeepneys is it goes when it's full, which make take a really long time. We waited nearly an hour before the driver felt the jeep was full enough and began moving. The road back to the highway was a ruddy, muddy, bumpy ride, always overlooking steep drops. After getting back to the Halsema Road, it was another 45 minutes to get to Bontoc where we changed jeeps bound for Banaue.
As we pulled into Bontoc we got out of the jeep and immediately, some guy asked me "Banaue?" I said yes, and he grabbed our backpacks. We followed him as he walked down around a corner to a garage and threw them on top of another jeep which was already filling up with people and stuff. Jose and Lori needed to find a public restroom and the jeepney driver took them down around to another street and pointed out where they could go. There wasn't much discussion involved, everything happened so fast and the girls were disappearing around a corner with this jeepney guy leaving Peter and I behind. I was at least relieved that they were using the buddy system. We pulled out of Bontoc and headed for Banaue. On the jeep we met an American named Joe, and we talked for a while. He's from Philly, and I had to ask him who had the best cheesesteaks. He began to laugh and he reluctantly said, Gino's has the best cheesesteaks. We know there's an ongoing argument on who has the best cheesesteaks, so I had to ask. Having never been to Philadelphia, I took his word for it.
We pulled into Banaue in the afternoon and as we got off the jeep, we were surrounded by people soliciting their hotels and hostels. It was a little overwhelming. Previously we had wanted to stay at Santa Fe Lodge but found it was going to be too expensive after the prices had inflated so we had called ahead to Green View Lodge. One of the young men said, "Green View Lodge", so we followed him down the steps into the town to the main street. Green View had actually run out of the room within our budget so he took us directly next door to People's Lodge to see what they had. We checked into a room with 2 double beds for 800 pesos ($16). Double beds weren't necessary of course but we chose the available room in the back, away from the noise on the street, and with a balcony and beautiful view outside our door. The double beds, however, did provide a nice space for laying out and reorganizing our stuff.
The view from our room and the restaurant was spectacular. A large panoramic view of rice terraces as far as the eye could see. When we came back downstairs to have a drink and check out the restaurant we asked about the price of the Jeepneys to the Saddle above Batad and it seemed expensive. All the money we carried with us had to feed us and to get us back to Manila and everything in between. As the 8th Wonder of the World, the rice terraces in Batad was going to be one of the biggest highlights on our trip. Batad is a village on a mountainside accessible only by hiking trail and we knew we needed a guide to get us there for fear of getting lost. But we also knew we could make our way back up on our own and allow us to stay one night there. The same young man who brought us there came up and we started discussions about having a guide and transportation.
Before we left home, we had connected via Facebook with the guide our friend Dawn had gone with on her recent trip to the Philippines, Denver Nacod-am, who they highly recommended, but we had come to find that his price was not within our budget. So we took this opportunity to find a cheaper way, face to face, especially since we were tight on time. The young man's name was Jeremiah, and he was able to find a couple other people to join in a rideshare with his friends van bringing our transportation costs down dramatically. Jeremiah wound up being our guide to Batad and we set up a time and place to meet the next day, and then we had dinner at the People's Lodge restaurant. The staff at the lodge and restaurant were very friendly, as we had come to expect with almost everywhere we slept or ate at in The Philippines. We enjoyed the views and went for a walk.
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