Day 3 marked our last morning in Cebu and our first day in Bohol. I went to pier early to buy our tickets, the tickets to the Super Cat ferry to Tagbilaran were already sold out so I had to go to Weesam Express – a company that doesn’t have a website that shows up in the first page of Google search results when you look for pings. Despite this ominous red flag, the trip to Bohol was relatively free of any inconvenience. Aside from the atrocious subtitles on the onboard movie (“Crash”), the ride was mostly tolerable and uneventful.

We reached Tagbilaran City after about two hours at sea. We were fetched at the pier and we quickly made our way to my friend’s beach front rest house. It was a big house with three rooms that easily fit the nine other people who went with me for the trip. The photo above was actually taken on the last day – when all of us were at least heavier – both in terms of shades of tan and actual body weight after all the beach bumming and scarfing.

Day one in Bohol was quite an exciting experience for four of us. During the first day, four people from my travel party decided to swim out to the edge of the island’s reef shelf to check out the corals and teeter off the dark edge.

The visibility was excellent and there were a good number of fish. Kage (the one responsible for the underwater shots) had to go back because her mask was fogging up. She would later share that her saliva wasn’t potent enough to be a defogger – to the three people who haven’t heard it yet – yes, saliva has been used by many snorkelers and divers to defog masks. Risto, our token foreigner guest tried to get the hang of snorkeling but it just didn’t work out for him. I guess he didn’t get enough snorkeling practice in the tropical paradise of Finland. Jim was trying out his new fins and mask and even had a diver’s knife with him – ya’know, to ward off the evil giant squid!

We lit a good-sized bonfire in front of the beach house early in the evening and roasted a few marshmallows. A good amount of alcohol was downed – perhaps a case of Tanduay Ice and around a dozen bottles of Red Horse. For some reason, I took this as a cue to talk to some friends of mine about the intricacies of learning about the brain works (perhaps using my limited knowledge from my past life as a medical student), Darwinism, cosmology and as always, music. Day three was quite a tame day especially when you compare it to what was to come the next day.

Special request, please go to Risto‘s blog, locate the poll on the sidebar and vote for TAGALOG, PO! Thanks.

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The first day in Cebu was an absolute trip – there was great food all throughout the day and we closed out the night with an awesome set courtesy of Next Stage in VuDu. Day 2 meant that our small group of three was to expand to a merrier band of nine as the other members of Team Manila flew in to the city.

Before meeting up with the rest of the team, we stretched the time we had in Hotel Pier Cuatro and relished every minute of shut eye that we could get. Before making our way to the other hotel that the team would be staying in, we trooped to CnT first to grab our second lechon lunch for the trip. Yup, healthy eating was definitely in the agenda for this trip.

Verge and Stephen elected to come with the majority of the group to check out the city and do the touristy stuff. I on the other hand picked the relative comfort of the hotel room and chose to catch a few Zzzzs before leaving in the afternoon to meet up with one of Cebu’s most prominent bloggers. The meeting place was quite convenient for me considering how close it was to the hotel and I did have Starbucks Coffee gift certificates that I needed to use so it was a pretty opportune moment.

After an hour of small talk with Focal Glass, I went back to the hotel to prepare for the main event – Cebu Trivia Night. It was their first year anniversary and they invited teams from Manila to go head to head against the best teams that Cebu has to offer. The concept of quiz nights has taken off in the city and it would be pretty easy to find a venue that has a house quiz on any given week night.

The quiz was set in the really posh Anzani restaurant that’s just across Bellini. The complex has a very nice view of the city thanks to its good elevation relative to the other parts of Metro Cebu. My team came into the event very nervous and a bit tentative (we were after all representing the 15 million people from Manila!). As the great Jim Gow said, it was probably what Michael Jordan felt when he played for the Loony Tunes team in Space Jam.

By the end of the night, one thing was clear – WE WERE THE BEST TEAM…

… from Manila! Four really good Cebu teams raced to a really good starts and we were just in awe of just how fast they could write down the answers to the questions! Truth be told, the pace of the game in Cebu is a lot faster than in Manila – and for some reason, the Cebuanos were REALLY fast. It seemed like we were the only team bother by the speed of the game! The Manila game has always been slow and while it has its disadvantages, it does make the game more easily regulated – less time means less time to cheat (and yes, there are teams who cheat in some venues in Manila). In Cebu, it was either you know it or you don’t – nobody has a fast enough GPRS connection to beat the time limit! We related this observations with Kacey and Kristine after the game and hopefully they’ll get to experience the Manila game where the pace is slower and the venues are smaller. Haha

It wasn’t that shabby a showing though. Our team still finished fourth out of thirteen teams – and we were just three points away from winning it all. It was such a shock since we were down eleven going into the final rounds. I played the individual round on local airport codes and I’m guessing we made a big move in closing the gap during that category.

In the end it was still a great showing. The questions were impeccably done! I would really want to congratulate Cebu Trivia Night for pulling this one off. The quality of the game and the hosting are definitely the reasons why people keep coming back for more.  I remember saying in the TV interview after the game that our team isn’t easily impressed but this quiz was easily up there as far as the standard of the competition and questions was concerned. It would have been far sweeter had we won, but it was a great experience. Win or lose, I still look quite good in gray shirt and silver tie, yes?
For updates regarding Cebu Trivia Night, follow their Facebook Page.

all photos were stolen from the album of Kaia Aguas.

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We were invited by Cebu Trivia Night for a Manila versus Cebu special last weekend (this will be tackled on a later entry) and for some reason, two of my friends and I decided to fly the day before of the event to give us a chance to see what the city had to offer. It’s been almost four years since my last trip to Cebu so I was pretty sure that there would have been a lot of changes already.

We stayed at Hotel Pier Cuatro – a hotel that’s near, well, Pier Cuatro. The accommodations were quite basic but the price was a good deal – 1380 pesos for three people with free breakfast sure sounds like a steal, yes? The staff was very friendly and helpful and the guard even helped me retrieve a bag that I accidentally left inside the cab that we took from the airport (I know…). This hotel is NOT in a posh area of the city but it is close to Park Mall and SM Cebu. Pier 4 is also the same pier that one would go to to catch the SuperCat ferry to Tagbilaran, Bohol.

There were two highlights of that fateful Thursday. The first one would be the exceptional food that they serve in a lot of unassuming food joints in Cebu. I will be posting photos as soon as I get them but if you’ve been to Cebu, you definitely know that the lechon (especially the one from CnT) is to die for. Well, you can literally die due to eating too much of it to tell you the truth. We scarfed down 3/4 kilo of lechon with six cups of rice and ended up paying a little over 130 pesos each. Getting lechon can be quite a chore though; I was in line for around 20 minutes before somebody took my order.

After sleeping the afternoon away, we went to AA’s Barbeque as suggested by the helpful lady in Hotel Pier Cuatro’s front desk. We sampled a good assortment of liver barbecue, clam soup, gizzard, giant squid (!) and other things that I can’t remember right now. The bill was once again ridiculously inexpensive – around 160 for each person for a feast of a dinner.

I was traveling with Verge and Stephen so the next step was quite obvious – we had to drink somewhere. I think I can squarely blame credit these two for getting me to drink again; or at least getting me to drink in amounts that I have never really managed to down in a long time. Verge has been to Cebu the most number of times (I’ve only been there thrice and Stephen was on his first time) so he made the call that we should check out Loft near the IT Park. When we got to IT Park, we find out that the place was closed and that we had to go to Plan B.

Well, well, well… good thing the Plan B was to go to VuDu. This was clearly the best break we’ve caught for the day! I really thought that VuDu was more of a dance club but apparently, it morphs into a rock venue during week days. We settled in as the band Next Stage was about to start their set. Obviously, we had no idea who they were but they seemed like an ordinary run-of-the-mill cover band who would probably play hits by Freestyle, Side A and just about every crowd-pleasing sappy band out there. The fact that their main vocalist was a girl didn’t help in breaking the stereotype.

Boy, were we wrong.

The band started out on a  more mainstream slant when they went with an Alicia Keys song. They also covered a Carrie Underwood song (Before He Cheats)before going all out with the videoke staple Alone by Heart. Then, it started getting weird.

Next Stage then segued to Love Song by 311. Now this song was pretty popular back in the day but I’m sure this wasn’t a big number on most show band’s play lists. Sensing that the band had some edge to them, I decided to request the song Plush by the Stone Temple Pilots. True to form, I also requested that I sing with the band. They were more than generous to let me do that and yes, as usual, I nailed the song without even needing the lyrics sheet. This song has always been my go-to-song and anyone with a good grunge growl can sing this hit and come out on the other end sounding like a seasoned pro. I think Verge has a video somewhere so I’ll be posting that once he uploads it. The band ended the first set with Journey’s Don’t Stop Believing.

We were already happy with how the band was choosing their songs. There was nothing cliche with what they were playing – they weren’t covering Before I Let You Go or Forevermore. They were really doing songs that we actually liked for reasons other than kitsch.

And then came the second set. It was so weird that what transpired could be written into an episode of The Twilight Zone. Next Stage played a recent hit by Three Doors Down (Here Without You) and from that point forward, it was sheer madness.

They played Black Dog. Yes, BLACK DOG by Led Zeppelin.

Just as we were reeling from the shock of that song choice, they started playing the opening riffs to Deep Purple‘s Smoke In The Water. It was a very good surprise that a lot of people were also into the music and were singing back the lyrics to the band.

And then came the iconic song of Pink Floyd – The Wall that comes from a highly conceptual album and concert series of the same title. It blew my mind – but I’m guessing the impact on Stephen was at least three times more of what I was experiencing.

The band then played two songs by the same artist. Would you believe it if I told you that they played two songs by AC/DC?! Well, they did. They covered the living hell out of It’s A Long Way To The Top and Highway To Hell. WHAT.THE.FUCK. The three of us had a lot of drinks already and we were already on our feet. By this time, we were convinced that we’ve stumbled on an alternate universe! I told Stephen that nothing can surprise me now. I won’t even be surprised if they started playing Metallica.

…and right on cue, the guitarist played the opening riffs to Enter Sandman. It was absolutely surreal. This song being the most recognizable tune from Metallica absolutely whipped the crowd of around 40 that Thursday night into a total frenzy. The space was to big to mosh in but everybody was certainly singing and jumping around.

The band closed out the night with the Guns ‘N Roses hit Paradise City. It was a very fitting end to a night that seemed like it was going to be a downer but ended up being an amazing and unforgettable experience.

From our searches on Google, we’ve found out that Next Stage has been playing on cruise ships before! There’s no surprise there. They definitely know how to work a crowd and their individual technical abilities are simply exemplary. Hopefully they’ll be in Cebu the next time I’m in town. They’re really awesome. I hope they get to read this.

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I first heard about Marlboro Country, Sagada while watching one of Howie Severino‘s documentaries on I-Witness. I have already been to Mountain Province four times when the episode aired so I was very surprised that no one has ever told me about the wild horses.

The story ends somewhat sad for these once proud steeds. There are only three of them left galloping along the meadows and hills of Lamangan – a barangay in Western Sagada. Most of the time, hikers won’t be able to see them. Their droppings would be everywhere though; it might puzzle most why so much dung is in the area considering there are only three horses around.

Due to the documentary, more and more people have asked to be brought to Marlboro Country in hopes of seeing wild horses. The horses aren’t exactly wild – they were once domesticated and were just released by their owner a few decades back.

The path to Lamangan is quite rough. Unlike in other areas of Sagada, it was virtually barren of any dwelling. There’s just a dirt path that’s flanked with mighty conifers that swing with the gentle moutain breeze. Walking this trail can be very calming despite the fairly steep ascent that hikers would have to make.

The thirty minute climb is very much worth it. While the trek can make one feel boxed inside a vast cluster of pine trees, all the foliage suddenly opens up to reveal a vast meadow at the top of a hill. Since it was also my first time to visit Marlboro Country, I was totally caught by surprise at how the panorama suddenly exploded out from nowhere. There was literally wall-to-wall of mountains, limestone formations, cliffs and rice terraces for as far as the eye can see. While the photographs may be quite breathtaking, I still feel that the 360 degree view will never be given justice by any two dimensional image.

We didn’t see any wild horses, but the view was simply spectacular. I can’t wait to go back to soak in every single second of the viewing experience. It was about to rain when we decided to go down the trail. This has got to be one of the best view points I’ve been in my life.

Photo credit: Lawstude

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I’ve been invited to speak as one of the lecturers for this event. It’s a great honor and we at Visit Sagada are very privileged to have been picked by the good people at YouthTrip Philippines. I will be there on Saturday afternoon to pitch for Sagada, Mountain Province and why the youth should consider it as their next backpacking destination. There will also be other people who will present other places in the area like Banaue and Batad.

What: Destination: PiliPinas – Conquering the Cordilleras

When: August 22 2009 4pm

Where: Travel Club TriNoMa

See you there.

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I figured most of you would be interested in how you could have your own scuba diving experience after reading my last few entries so let me share this how-to guide.

What do I need to dive?

While there are dive centers that would typically allow non-divers to have short “intro” dives, the best way to make the most of your time and money is to have yourself certified. Various diving organizations sanction the certification process with PADI being the most popular outfit.  Unlimited Diving offers a reasonably priced program at 8000php for a CMAS certification. You may call  Cell Globe 0917-TX Diver [893-4837] Smart 0929-8182478 for inquiries. Please tell them that you have been referred via this site.

Most dive resorts would have a well-stocked dive shop complete with gear for rentals. You can still go diving even if you don’t have any scuba equipment with you, just be prepared to shell out money for rentals. As you  dive more and more often, you might want to consider investing in equipment since you’ll probably recoup your initial expenses by saving on rental fees in the long run.

How do I get to the resorts in Mabini and Anilao?

The towns of Mabini and Anilao are  only 2.5 hours away from Manila, but it will take three rides on three different modes of transportation to get there. From Manila, one may choose to take a bus from either the Cubao ALPS Bus terminal or the JAM Liner terminal at Buendia. I suggest that you take the 430 AM bus from Buendia so that you can avoid the morning rush. The fare is about 160 php.

Tell the conductor that you’ll be disembarking at the “diversion” near Balagtas. This stop is hard to miss since it’s also next to another ALPS bus terminal. Early in the morning, the commute to this point could take less than 90 minutes. From there, you can take a Mabini-bound jeepney. The ride is about 30 minutes and costs 30 php. Ask to be taken upto the Mabini public market.

From there, hail a tricycle to take you to your dive resort of choice. This typically costs 30-40 per person. The trike ride is along the coast and usually lasts from 15-20 minutes depending on which dive resort you’re going to.

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I promise, there will be more pictures. My dive master had an underwater camera for the dive so I’m really thrilled to see the shots online. My group of seven braved the trip from Manila to Mabini and thanks to boundless enthusiasm and early bus trips, the gang was able to arrive at the Aquadventure dive resort around 7AM.

We had two dives for the day – a 38-minute excursion to the Cathedral dive site and a 39-minute trip to Twin Rocks. It’s really cool to go back to Cathedral because I graduated there. It’s been almost 9 years since I got my PADI certification – yup that long, no one even knows my dive instructor anymore (he’s Jay Cross by the way, does anyone know him?). Twin Rocks featured a massive school of jacks – that’s talakitok in local parlance. They are amazing creatures that seemed to move in a deliberate and synchronous fashion. It’s  great to be in awe of their grace and precision but it’s also a bit disconcerting that they’re the length of your arm! haha.

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The travel-oriented Couchsurfing is nearing one millionth sign up and just a few minutes ago Ben Hanna (one of the great people working under the Couchsurfing Project) shared that the site will be debuting a  new logo to comemorate this feat. The project was started years ago to allow for greater interaction between people of different backgrounds as they travel – allowing for greater communication and appreciation for the diversity in culture, traditions and beliefs all arond the world. I’m a member  of Couchsurfing and thanks to this initiative, I’ve been able to find other travel aficionados. In the past three months, I’ve been to Anawangin, Pinatubo and Sagada – all with Couchsurfers in tow.

Aside from the logo, Hanna also updated users regarding these changes:

• The Home tab has been removed to make room for your profile, giving you easy access to your settings and friend information. You can still get home by clicking the logo.
• To use search for a couch, just click on Surf/Host! This section will expand in the future to include useful tools for hosts.
• Community is no longer a jumble of links (whew!). Now, it’s where you’ll find the most useful tools for connecting with your local community, including your groups and events.
• The Messages tab will be pretty much the same. Don’t fix what isn’t broken!
• Share is a place to share your opinion of the project and your support of the community through donation and CS gear. Shirts with the new logo are coming to CS gear soon!
• The Organization tab will fill you in on all the details about how CS runs, who’s heading up the effort, and how this non-profit organization is structured.

Couchsurfing will be sending routine alerts on how close we are to the million. 

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Insane jumpshot (on the way to Bomod-ok Falls, December 25, 2008)

Towards the end of the year last year, my brother and I went up the the Cordilleras to spend a full week exploring caves, trekking and just relaxing after months of exhaustion. My younger brother and I rarely find common ground in terms of activities other than playing basketball so this was an excellent opportunity to experience new things together. Well, it’s not exactly that new. You see, I’ve been to Sagada, Mountain Province enough times for me to launch Visit Sagada while my brother was last  here almost a decade ago. He barely saw anything back then since he only spent about 16 hours before shuttling away to Baguio so he was really excited to see what he missed out on.

How’s this for body control? (Bomod-ok Falls, December 25, 2008)

Armed with just the paltry two-megapixel cameras of iPhones, we tried our best to capture our one week vacation in pictures. The camera sure had limitations, but our willingness to capture those moments – and ourselves in the most insane and fleeting poses — overcame that circumstance. Being the dancer that he is, it was effortless on his part to contort his body to many unrealistic permutations that looked really good on photographs. I tried doing the same poses that he pulled  but obviously, he’s not the photographer that I am. None of my shots had me holding the pose – most of them had me on the way down already. He really pulled a fast one on me when he ended up with almost all the good shots.

The beauty of nature is overwhelming and often disarming. Even sights that people don’t consider as something of interest could suddenly be fascinating. Take this boulder for example:

We suddenly  had the urge to scale boulders near the entrance to a cave and before we knew it, we were already draining our phones’ batteries. It was  no big deal of course since Globe’s signal was atrocious in the area. There were even bigger boulders that allowed for even grander vanity shots.

He actually tried getting off this thing using an unfamilar route and he really panicked when he found that he ran our out of footholds and grips when he was still about 9 feet off the ground! hehe.

Of course at some point, I had to join in!

Who says outdoorsmen can’t be camwhores?

For more information regarding Sagada, please go to Visit Sagada.

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Ok, so for some reason this awesome jumpshot didn’t make AXN-Asia head hunters swoon and pick us as one of the twenty-four (24) teams for the AXN Asia Big Challenge so I had to make alternate plans for the weekend. Instead of running around inside a mall built on shaky foundations that may be claimed by the sea any minute now,  my teammate Angel and I will be going scuba diving off the coast of Anilao, Batangas this weekend. You see Angel recently graduated from PADI’s Basic Open Water Diving Course so he’s still really excited to go diving week after week. It has been months since my last dive as well so it would be great to be reacquainted with the denizens of the deep. Anilao boasts what it said to be the most biodiverse marine ecosystem in the world and as if that’s not enough, whale sharks – the largest fish in the world — have been spotted swimming in the area the past few weeks!  I’ll take this over AXN Asia Big Challenge any time.

And no, we’re not bitter. Good luck to all those who made. I’m sure we’ll be having more fun that you guys. Take care and stay safe throughout the race!

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Exhibit Title: Living by Water
When: May 12 -27, 2008
Where: Alcove Perspective, Filipinas Heritage Library, Makati Avenue, Ayala Triangle, Makati City

ABOUT THE EXHIBIT
From time immemorial, civilizations have thrived and lived near bodies of water. The reason is crystal-clear: water is vital to man’s existence. It is the reason why this exhibition pays homage to water and its significance to how and why people live by the water. Featuring photos that tell stories about the coastal Filipinos’ living conditions, reveal their culture, and relate their stories of survival.

The exhibit will carry a raft of striking images from across our archipelago. The Badjao Stilt Villages of Basilan. The Muslim Stilt Village of Rio Hondo in Zamboanga. The fishermen of Siquijor. The T’bolis of Lake Sebu. The rugged shores of Itbayat in Batanes. And the tranquil coasts of Iloilo.

ABOUT THE PHOTOGRAPHER
Ferdinand is a travel photographer and award-winning blogger. A graduate of Fine Arts, Major in Advertising at the Far Eastern University, he got started on film photography during his college years. He worked as a graphic artist and web designer for three years, pursuing photography as a hobby.

Landing his first publication job as an Art Director enabled him to embark on a new career as a professional travel photographer. Getting his fair share of freelance jobs and assignments, his works eventually got published in a number of travel magazines both here and overseas.

His website Ironwulf.net: En Route at www.ironwulf.net, is the chronicle of his many travels and insightful photography. It has received recognition from the both local and international media.

With eager eyes, a curious mind and wandering feet, this young travel photographer and blogger plans to do an exhibit on Asian Heritage sites in the near future.

Event brought to you by:
Alcove Perspective, Epson Philippines and Ironwulf.net: En Route

Best Regards,
Ferdz Decena

—

Ferdz Decena is one of the best travel bloggers in the country today. I look forward to meeting him.

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After languishing in the middle for many weeks, Tubbataha has broken through to claim the seventh spot in New7Wonders.org’s quest to list the seven new Natural Wonders of the World. Despite the fact that less than 0.1% of the Philippine population has seen this wonder – heck, I haven’t even met another blogger who’s also a scuba diver— Tubbataha Reef is in good position to land inside the Top 21 slots by year’s end. The twenty-one candidates with the most number  of votes will advance to the public voting stage wherein people from all over the world will be allowed to cast their vote online and via SMS.

Sharing the top spots with Tubbataha is Ha Long Bay in Vietnam, Cox’s Bazaar in Bangladesh,  Ganges River in Bangladesh and India, Mount Fuji in Japan, Mount Everest in China and Nepal and the Amazon Rain Forest in South America.

Notable wonders in the running include the USA’s Grand Canyon  (#16) and Niagara Falls  (with Canada, #17) and Australia’s Great Barrier Reef (#21).

You may still vote.

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Visit Sagada was a project that was started almost purely on impulse and one month in, I’m just startled and amazed at how great the reception has been. Despite minimal press from other bloggers, Visit Sagada has definitely taken off quite nicely. It’s actually quite refreshing that most of the traffic, comments and e-mails that we get at Visit Sagada don’t come from the people within the blog community. Though it’s always nice to be commended by your peers, it’s even better to help other people with useful information. Time and time again, people at online forums have struggled to plan their trips to Sagada due to the lack of organization of the information available online. With Visit Sagada now existent, it’s great to hear stuff about how we’ve made it a bit easier for those who brave the trip up north.

For the month of March, the site amassed a great number of unique hits, total page views and pages/visit ratio. We’re talking about a month-old site here! Though numbers in the thousands are always impressive, I think the 5.65 pages/visit stat is the most flattering. The average visitor also spends almost 10 minutes browsing the pages of Visit Sagada.

Week per week, Visit Sagada has shown increased readership in terms of hits. It’s interesting to note that both the e-mail and RSS subscribers for the site don’t even add up to a dozen people. It’s likely that Visit Sagada is talking to a different demographic – they’re not the technophiles or the bloggers; they’re adventurous individuals who don’t really give a crap about SEO and other blog buzzwords. I fought long and hard to make sure that Visit Sagada would stay friendly and relevant to this niche and it’s great that I put my foot down. I was right all along. Visit Sagada peaked at 1003 unique hits last week and hopefully next week will be just as good.

I did say a while ago that we’re not exactly that well-connected in terms of links from other blogs. Where do we get our hits from then?

According to Analytics, Google is our number one referrer. Being the 6th search result for the keyword “Sagada” out of 349,000 sure helps. A good number of visitors have also found us via Yahoo search. Ironically, we’re not even on the first page pages in Yahoo for the same keyword. It’s quite interesting that over 220 chose to sift through everything and find us near the bottom of the heap. Not surprisingly, forums (Pinoyexchange, FemaleNetwork and TipidPC) also account for a lot of the hits. As you can see, bloggers don’t really like Visit Sagada – Twitter referrals are low and those who click it only look at 3 pages on average – almost half the general mean. Thank you to Ferdz for being one of the few bloggers to support us. Most of his referrals have been from overseas so it’s great that he’s helping us reach a wider audience.

As expected, most of the traffic is from the Philippines. Almost 82% of the unique hits were made by IP addresses identified as Filipino in origin. Other major sources of traffic include the US, Singapore and Germany. I’ve also been swamped with t he amount of mail we’ve been getting. It’s great to get messages from all over! I enjoy responding to their questions and making them more at ease with the idea of going to Sagada.

 The Visit Sagada team – especially Angel and I — are truly honored  to have your support and confidence in this early stage of our existence online.

The site has definitely taken off much better than I expected. Here’s to an even better April for Visit Sagada!

Cheers!

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We haven’t exactly had a lot of press, but it’s great that in a few days of Visit Sagada in circulation, we’ve managed to get close to 90 unique hits per day. It may not sound a lot, but when you factor in that the site gets over 300 page views a day, that suggests that the people actually read the content – they didn’t end up on the site due to Entrecard, some cheap SEO tactic or what have you.

 When I thought about the concept for this website, I never planned to make it a blog – I wanted it to be a resource — a one-stop shop for people who are considering going to Sagada. We’re getting a steady amount of traffic from all over and we’re figuring in well with search engine results with virtually no SEO strategy. I’m sure backpackers are not necessarily the tech geek crowd  so I really made sure that there will be no technophillic entities on the pages.

I’d rather risk a dearth of articles in the future rather than deny information we already know now to people who are busy browsing the net. If we  could help one person plan better, I think that’s already having the site serve its purpose. Of course, this is only my personal opinion – and hopefully it will be the site’s collective policy in the near future.

So far so  good.

Summer’s just around the corner!

See you in Sagada?

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If you’re not yet aware that I’m crazy about Sagada, then it’s very likely that you’re not really a frequent reader of this blog. As proven of my entries here, here, here and here, I’ve long found the charm and the draw of this Mountain Province town too much to deny. In line with this, I – along with other like-minded individuals — started a website that seeks to further promote Sagada as a destination for adventure junkies, nature lovers and backpackers. Yes, this is it! This is the top secret project I’ve been talking about on Twitter for the past weeks.

Visit Sagada was born out of the collective nostalgia and love of adventure of bloggers who have experienced Sagada for themselves. The trip to Sagada continues to be a daunting challenge and due to the relative dearth of information on the internet. To help those who are planning their getaway, the writers of Visit Sagada will be posting reviews of living accomodations, tour and itinerary suggestions, traveler photos and visitor raves and blog entries.

	The Travel page discusses the various routes that a traveler could take to Sagada. The town is not exactly near any airports so traveling by land is the only option outside of taking a chartered helicopter.
	There are plenty of hotels and restaurants in Sagada but since not all of them have websites, the word doesn’t really get out that much. Through this page, travelers would be able to canvass for the most affordable hotels, inns and lodges as well as scout for restaurants.
	The Tour page lists down the numerous activities that one could do while in Sagada. Whether its spelunking in the vast cave systems or trekking to the hidden waterfalls a couple hours’ hike away, there’s sure to be something for everyone regardless of age or interest.
	The Blog Page AKA the home page will serve as the repository of all entries, visitor raves and traveler tips by the Visit Sagada writers and contributors.
	The Visit Sagada Team is comprised of yours truly, Angel of Color Me Bleue, Fritz of Fritzified, Jeff of Teknostik and Gareth of Sagada Genuine Guides. If you want to be a contributor, leave a comment or send us an email.

If you want to help the Visit Sagada team spread the word about Sagada and help those who are planning their own Sagada getaway, blog about us, add Visit Sagada to your blog roll or add this button:

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If you want to contribute or you want to have your photographs, entries, itineraries or other personal insights featured on Visit Sagada, kindly email me at benj [at] visitsagada [dot] com. If you want an email address @visitsagada, you may email me as well.

Thank you and see you in Visit Sagada. Please leave comments. We highly appreciate them.

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