Sagada
This would be my first time going to the Cordillera, a mountain range whose popular name was coined by the Spanish in reference to its cord-like labyrinth of mountain chains, going on seemingly forever in the highland pine-filled forests of Northern Luzon. Such a labyrinth it was, and inaccessible too, that the Spanish had difficulty in colonizing the Indigenous populations living there.
Today, in 2019, it still takes 10 hours of travel from Manila to Sagada, a now popular tourist destination for Filipinos and foreigners alike. The road into the maze of mountain peaks winds and twists, and even turns back on itself at times, like a tired serpent in the clouds whose head and tail are impossible to trace. The last leg of the road into Sagada follows Chico River. It is an important river that Cordillerans fought to protect in the late 70’s, until a local leader was killed fighting the construction of the Chico Dam.
We took refuge from the cold winding road only to find that the only way to Sagada’s town center was by renting a scooter, leaving us exposed to the cold again. Jeeps and buses were seldom, so we put on as many layers as we could and dove back into the quiet highway filled with pine trees and the invisible crystal clear bite of Sagada’s chill. Was I still in the Philippines?
First stop was the tourist office in the town’s center, where all tourists are required to register and pay the necessary environmental fees. The receipt given is required in order to partake in the many excursions available in Sagada. It was still early, around 5pm on a Friday. But we could already sense the impending tsunami of tourists coming for the 3 day weekend.
At this moment however, as we searched for dinner and pasalubong spots (gift shops), it was mostly students leaving school and residents buying nilagang maize (boiled corn) watching us tourists navigate their town for the first time. Hundreds of questions asked and just as many entertained. What restaurant do you recommend? What dish should we eat? My questions answered, R and I headed down a steep road, peeping inside the little shops along the way.
For dinner we went to Salt and Pepper where we had etag and itsa for the first time. Etag is what I keep calling the brown gold of the Cordillera. An age-old practice of preserving meats on Philippine mountain tops, pork is cut in a way so that stripes of fat and meat are evident (like large magnified slabs of bacon), cured, and then smoked for one to two weeks.
If etag is brown gold, then itsa is the Cordillera’s bronze ambrosia. Also called mountain tea, it is made from wild leaves from a species I have yet to find information on. They are boiled or steeped in hot water for 2-3 minutes and then served with honey.
The next day we went off to see the hanging coffins of Sagada, which for the longest time I’ve wanted to see thanks in part to blogs and search engines honing in on the lengthy page views lowlanders and foreigners have signaled to SEO algorithms to exotify. A guide is now required for the tour for P300, so Russel was dispatched to us. From him we learned that the language we hear in town is Kankana-ey, which R said has common words with Ilokano and Pangasinan; the lowland neighbors of the diverse peoples of the Cordillera.
At the tour jump off is St. Mary’s Church, the first church in Sagada ironically erected by the Americans and not the Spanish; the latter colonizer most associated with bringing Jesus to the Philippines. Russel shared that along with the Anglican religion, Americans brought softball.
The church dates back a hundred years, but the hanging coffins date back 300 years, in limestone caverns etched by receding sea water and tectonic activity lasting 30 million years (and counting).
Though most Kankana-ey in Sagada are Anglican, Russel noted that there were still fellow Igorot practicing the burial of elders on these cliff faces, but it is now a very small amount. The disruption made by American Anglicans, coupled with the stringent Indigenous policy of only native elders with grandchildren buried this way, have whittled down the amount of hanging coffins to a few. Most out of view of tourist trails. Others bury their dead close to the home.
That night tourists outnumbered locals on the streets of Sagada 10-to-1. Salt and Pepper, Sagada Brew, and Yogurt House, three of the many popular (& delicious) dining spots in the small town had long lines spilling out into a street full of honking tourist vans. The lesser-known American gold rush that took place here and all around the Cordillera brought the American colonizer to places the Spanish couldn’t reach. The serpentine roads we traversed earlier is one of the legacies they left behind, along with St. Mary’s church and softball.
Today, there is a different rush. The very cultures and cuisines that were suppressed are now the highlights of tours fueled by Filipino and foreigner lowlanders alike. What will be considered gold here by outsiders after another 300 years is anyone’s guess.