Increased Site Traffic, Most Expensive Coffee, Remote Town ATM, Rich Nurse

1. My fledgling site traffic suddenly went up by 2x the daily average after posting my second bloggables post on the "motit", Igorot bloggers and Sagada Hospital website. I was baffled by this, and checking my Sitemeter statistics, I noticed that most of the traffic was coming from emails. If any of my dear visitors can just leave a comment and tell me how they learned of this post just hours after I published it, I would really appreciate it. My Google Adsense earnings for today just increased by five times the normal average that I get.

2. I did some digging on the most expensive coffee in the world and found out that indeed, it is due to the motit or civet cat. Apparently, the motit partially digest coffee cherries and upon excretion, the beans are collected, cleaned, and roasted. The internal digestion is said to add a special flavor to the beans and these are sold for enjoyment at the price of $600/pound - that's around $50/cup, 10 times more expensive that Starbucks. I thought it's disgusting, but I guess if you're a true coffee drinker, nothing will stop you from trying this brew.

3. There's a comment in the Lakwatsero website that indicates there is no ATM in Sagada as recently as May 2008. That has changed earlier this week with the installation of an ATM at the Rural Bank of Sagada. Encash, the ATM network uses the Megalink group and has 38 rural banks and two nonbank financial institutions for its client base. This is definitely good news to all Sagada travelers.

4. Finally, I remember a story of an Igorot nurse who one time took hours to go back to the of relatives she was staying with, since she had to walk from her school. She comes from a poor family in Sagada and didn't have any money for jeepney fare. Eventually, her determination persevered and she migrated to the United States as a nurse. Now, she has her own huge house, and drives a couple of luxury cars - a great testament that hard work and perseverance do pay off.