Municipality of Sagada in Mt. Province is about six hours travel by bus from Baguio City. It will definitely be shorter period if you have your own ride.
When I was working in Metro Manila, some of my colleagues who went to Sagada were shocked to know that I haven't been there yet. That is because I am from that region, in another province (state) but still, way much closer than where my colleagues were from. I was not that wandering soul during those days. Then I thought, "Yes, I should visit Sagada one day."
I have been thinking of going on round-trip day tour, coming from Baguio City, to this place. When I posted on another social medium about a travel near the place, someone commented and volunteered to be my buddy on my next destination - my niece's childhood friend! Let's call her Ally. She is more adventurous than I thought.
When I told Ally that I have been thinking about Sagada and that their Etag Festival is coming up in two days, she immediately said "let's go!" I have been to different parts of the country and overseas but I never left without booking a place to stay. We have only a day left to prepare and I was worried that we may not be able to find an accommodation. Ally was the opposite. She was very positive and insisted that we will have a place to stay. Without any plan for itinerary and a place to stay, we packed and off we went...
We left Baguio City at three in the morning and arrived in Sagada by 7:30am. We went straight to the Tourist Information Center to register.
Registration fee: P100.00 per person
Insurance: P50.00 per person
For a while I thought of not registering anymore but I later realized its importance as went on with our tour. For every tourist spot that we visit, they would check our registration and take note of the name of the establishment where we stay. That's it! They monitor movements of tourists.
I checked the insurance receipt and noted it is from a private insurance company. "They are wise to make an insurance mandatory to tourists. This company has a secured business," I thought.
We went for breakfast in the building next to the Tourist Information Center. We just finished when we heard drums and lyres playing. Oh yes, it is the opening day of Etag Festival! We went out to the street and watched the parade.
I went live on Facebook so I did not have good photos from the parade. Here are few captures from the live videos.
Different villages within Sagada, schools and entities joined the parade.
After the parade, we went in front of the town hall where the Agro-industrial Fair was being held. It was surprising, and quite disappointing, to see only one stall that sells etag. So what is etag?
Etag: local term in the Mt. Province that refers to salted, smoked and dried, basically preserved, pork. It is used as an ingredient or element to a dish, usually "pinikpikan" which is another local term for a chicken dish "tinola".
If you go to a festival that promotes a certain product then by default you expect arrays of that product on display at a trade fair. Unfortunately, that was not the case for etag festival. We expressed our disappointment about the lack of options to buy etag from and the locals were laughing. Ally teased them "how can it be etag festival without free etag? Not even tiny bits?" One of them said, "tell that to the mayor." We all just laughed at the irony.
Ally and I then looked for a place to stay and surprisingly, there was vacancy in the first inn we inquired from, right in the middle of the busy town. I was expecting that all are booked given the timing of the festival but apparently, Ally's intuition was right.
On our last day in Sagada, we rushed to the same store to buy etag. One of the sellers was saying each pack is half kilogram but just looking at them, I know each pack is not 500 grams but lesser.
I asked, "are you sure this is 500 grams each?" She said yes.
"It does not seem 500 grams," I said. I can't continue with "it is lesser."
I picked two packs and looked around for a weighing scale. There was none so I said "these are not one kilogram." It was a firm statement.
That was the time another lady spoke up and said, "ma'am, those were weighed raw so it is expected that the weight decreased after the processing."
"What?" I exclaimed and almost followed it thru with "that's not fair!" but I held my tongue up. How am I to say unfair if it is their system? I was just challenged to get my mind into it.
When I got home, I weighed what I bought and both packs were only 760 grams instead of 1,000 that I paid for. Well, I will leave that to the next tourist to weigh in.
