Mountain Province

Sagada is a small town deep in the cordillera mountains in the north of the Philippines. It is remote enough that the Spanish conquistadors rarely came here. So a lot of the local culture remains more intact than elsewhere.
The 1st picture is a pre-Christian stone circle in the middle of town. I'm told this is where they worshipped, where judgment was given, where disputes were settled, etc. In other words, all things that made for community centered here.
Nearby is St. Mary the Virgin Episcopal church. The 2nd picture is inside the current church as it has been rebuilt a number of times. The 1st missionaries here were not Catholic, like in most of the Philippines. The 3rd picture is all that remains of a mill built by the missionaries. Interestingly, they also installed an electric generator. So the town had power earlier than most.
The 4th picture is the graveyard that was begun by the missionaries. Prior to that, the local tradition was to hang coffins from the cliffs as in the 5th picture. This is probably what is best known about Sagada.
The 6th picture looks out of a local cave and shows a bit of what the area looks like. The 7th the picture is where their underground river returns to the surface. It drops underground a bit downstream from Bokong Falls with it's natural swimming hole in the 8th picture.
The 9th picture is of fields, mostly rice, between Bokong Falls and the town. The last picture is what they call blue soil. I asked what made the soul blue, but the guide didn't know, though she did say there was a gold mine directly below the site. I'll leave it to the geologists and geochemists to provide an answer.Lue lisää