Photo Diary: Bumod-Ok Falls Sagada 2015

HELLO! It was a great day to do trekking, hiking going to Bomod-Ok Falls! 

Situated at the northern part of Sagada, Bomod-ok Falls or the Big Falls is a 200 meters waterfall hidden behind rice paddies and small mountain villages.

From the jump-off point, an allocated narrow yet well-maintained pathway and series of stone stairs serve as the hiking trail, the same trail use by residence of Barangay Fidelisan, the small village situated in between the jump-off point and the waterfall.

The highlight of our trip in Sagada. Yes, "highlight" if you are planning your trip and would like to get to know more about their community and locals, this one is best and challenging things to do. One of the longest posts here in my blog and this year trip.

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Island Trotters x Jewel Clicks tandem was awesome! 

I am still looking forward to travel with Carissa someday. 

Group photo and travel buddies! I am so happy to be part in this group, who said group tour with strangers isn't cool? I don't have any regrets. It is one way of meeting new people and being friends with during the entire trip!

"Hello, everyone! Hope to cross paths with you again." 

We were divided into two groups. Carissa and I joined the "tres marias" and so we called our group as "Spice Girls" plus our manager, Karen our Tour Guide! HAHAHA

Before the hiking and adventure going to the falls, we listened to our Tour Guide's "do's and dont's" IT IS REALLY IMPORTANT since we are going to cross a small community in the middle of the mountains. Really interesting!

Meet Karen, our Tour Guide, I love her native bag too, made in Sagada Weaving. :) 

Now let's start the adventure! Total of  roughly 4 hours, they said. 

For the start, there will be traffic that caused by us, humans. I guess this is the reason that you will spend roughly 4 hours of your hiking going to falls (not me saying "human traffic" here in my blog.) We all started in one schedule because they record the number of the people who go to the falls. Believe me, they are very organized.

After 30 minutes of walking, you will be amazed by wonderful view, as long as you will get closer and closer, you will see a community in the middle and wondering "how they are living in the middle" I don't know, but stupid questions are being asked sometimes especially to tour guides.

Reality checked: After an hour, we were still far away from falls. Whoaaa! If you can see the left side, falls' is behind that small mountain. Okay, screaming... hahahaha

Going there you need to have strength, ready for cardio and patience. I had a body pain three days before our trip from my first session of Muay Thai. 

If you will zoom this photo below. You will see people on the right side, middle, and far middle near the hill you will a bridge. YES. That far! 

Rice field. 

Tip #1: Less talking, less taking photos, more walking and more breathing.

The caused of traffic if you are also with others: taking group photos. If they stop for photos, we also stop for photos and I see it also as an advantage? #Labo

Question answered: Locals selling food and cold drinks for the travelers who will go to falls. Let's be real here, you will feel the hunger and thirst after more than an hour of walking.

Tip #2: To saved our time, we decided not to stop and we passed by the group of visitors who were taking their rest for long trekking

Face checked: We were still good looking pale! 

PHOTO OPTS!

Cool dog, chillin' 

Cute baby girl at the door watching us visitors passed by.

Cute little boy, I even asked him to have the sunflower, so he ignored me.

Not him, dealing with no signal of any mobile networks.

Quick shot because this view is breathtaking!

Face checked: We were still good looking and okay. Photo by our Tour Guide.

Finally, BOMOD-OK FALLS!

All girls blurred photo, but its okay. 

Anyway these girls know how to travel with style and comfort, why I didn't applied it for me? I looked terrible wearing "penguin sweater" hahahaha! 

Beautiful!

Raymond jumped off right away to the falls.

Recharging my energy by eating this oatmeal cookie made in Sagada. I swear, this is yummy. Why I didn't bought a lot when we get back to Cebu? :( 

GOING BACK.

We experienced traffic going to the falls and to avoid that we just stayed there for 10 minutes taking photos and looking at it and the group decided to go back right away because 1) there are no space where you can sit and relax and 2) people are flocking the area and there's no space anymore.

One more thing that created traffic on our way there is this hanging bridge going there. Everybody stopped by to have their solo / group photo taken here. We decided to skip this since there were a lot of people waiting for their turn.

So on our way back, no one was there and we were all had the chance to take photos. Take that as a tip.

YAAAY! Carissa was scared actually. :)

Fashionable tres marias! :)

Groupie!

Going back was the hardest part of this adventure. I did all the best and different types of breathing applied. Yoga, Muay Thai, Jogging, Abs core workout breathing. We almost gave up, but when we cross paths with the locals from the market, we were inspired by them.

Imagined a mother with her kid from the market on their way home was amazing, the mother carrying a sack over her head that she probably bought from the market and we can tell it was really heavy while her kid walking first.

We also cross paths with a mother with infant and two kids that were also from the market and lifting heavy stuff they bought. Whew!

There's no way you can bring trolly on their way home locals have to walk every day whenever they need to buy something to the market.

Our tour guide said, "they are used to this kind of living because this is where they live." Thank you, Ate Karen! :)

First group to arrived from the batch earlier. Lunch time here. We ordered pinakbet and bangus. Our adventure was workout, really workout. 

Beautiful sunflower (my favorite flower)

The NEC Tours hunks! :D 

They asked me to take photo of them. Our driver is on the lower right wearing violet jacket.

Next stop: Sagada Weaving. 

We are not allowed to take photos, but they have beautiful crafts inside the store including the bag of Ate Karen! :) 

After that Echo Valley and Hanging Coffins, which I will be posting next! :) 

If you want to read or check my previous posts about Sagada, click here. 

I still have three posts remaining about Mountain Province. I guess, this is what happened if you will travel, you will end up being a story teller. :) 

Leaving you my smiling face when I was excited to see the Echo Valley and Hanging Coffins.

(Please bear with me, hahaha)

How was your Holy Week? 

I know some of you went to the beach and had fun with your vacation. 

Now back to reality! 

Happy Easter!

Have a great day everyone! 

xx

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