Echo Valley, Sagada, Mountain Province
I never get tired of this place. It’s my third time coming here and there always seems to be something new to discover. This time, aside from visiting the sites I missed before, I got a little brush with their culture and appreciated more of our history, probably because I have a couple of companions who are into Philippine Heritage Conservation. This trip made me realize the importance of our past and connections of various events in different parts of the our archipelago. I may blame it to our schools as not being as interesting in teaching history as you experience in a place.
An open coffin remains.
One of the amusing discoveries we found is another small burial cave inside the Echo Valley region not listed on their map. I literally, fell on my way there. I didn’t know what happened but I slipped on a side cliff. I tried to hang on to my life with a tripod on one hand as I didn’t know how high I would fall. My grip failed me and I just let myself fall, and for some strange reason I didn’t feel any fear whatsoever. I found myself only 6 or 7 feet high fall with bamboo tree roots cushioning my fall. Thanks to my mini backpack, I only suffered a few scratches and bruises on both arms. Thank God for that! Hahaha. That was a first for me, and my companion told me that it scared him and was ready to deny knowing me if anything happened! Hahaha.
Going back to that small cave, we weren’t actually looking for it, but we were informed of the burial cave discovery and our other companions who have a different IT with us that day were looking for it, missed it by a turn. Out of curiousity and desire to take a photo of a group of hanging coffins on the west side of the valley, we treaded an unbeaten path and found this small cave, obstructed by thorny plants on the end of the path. My companion investigated it while I took a photo and was startled to find more coffins inside. So this is what they were looking for. One coffin was open with the skull clearly visible. The skull seemed smaller than the usual, like a child, but the coffin was quite long. I didn’t want to dirturb it really but I want to take a good picture and had to reposition the skull. Believe me I had wierd dreams that night of a woman speaking to me in a really strange language. That corpse’s name is Emilaiana by the way.
Ferdz Decena is an award-winning travel photographer, writer and blogger. His works has found print in publications such as Singapore Airlines’s Silver Kris, Philippine Airlines’ Mabuhay, Cebu Pacific’s Smile and Seair InFlight. He has also lent his expertise to various organizations like the Oceana Philippines, Lopez Group Foundation, Save the Children and World Vision, contributing quality images for their marketing materials.
