Sagada Rice Terraces
Monday, November 23, 2009
"They rise up to the heavens... giant steps leading to the sky..."
Legend has it that the Igorot god, Kabunyan/Lumaig used these steps to visit his people on earth. Indeed, the rice terraces carved out of the mountains by Igorot ancestors early in this millennium are simply awesome to behold. Dubbed as the eighth wonder of the world, these rice terraces were built with advance engineering skills and are scientifically, a way of maximizing farm space in the mountainous Cordillera region and environmentally preventing erosion.
Scattered all over the Cordilleras, the most famous of these terraces are found in neighboring Banaue, Ifugao. Sagada has its own terraces - lesser known but equally as spectacular! Whereas the walls of Banaue's terraces are of compacted earth, Sagada's walls are small rocks laboriously piled one on top of the other. One sees the same though... giant steps carved by hand out of whole mountainsides provide for terrific viewing!
SAGADA RICE TERRACES PICTURES:
On the way to Ambasing, one of Sagada's 19 barangays, limestone karts cliffs dotted with pine trees dominate the landscape as seen in the this photograph. On these cliffs, perched precariously on a wedge, four or five coffins are arranged in a pile. The oldest one is more than a century old; the latest addition was put into place decades ago. It belonged to a lady from Demang (another Sagada barangay) who happens to be a great-aunt of this webmaster. 
Underneath Sagada is a network of limestone caves and subterranean streams. These caves were created by water eroding whole limestone mountains over a period spanning thousands of years. Some caves are dry, as if the underground rivers that have created them disappeared. However, these caves are dry simply because the water has found another channel by seeping through the mountain and emptying through numerous small watery caves. 
There are two prominent waterfalls in Sagada; the smaller but older BOKONG situated in the outskirts of the central barangay of Patay, and the more majestic but younger BOMOD-OK, located in the northern barangay of Bangaan.
I’m posting my list of 9 can’t-miss sites for any Sagada visitor. This list is in just one webpage in the sagada-igorot.com website, but I’m splitting it into 2 blog posts. It may take around 3-4 days to visit and enjoy these places. I’m listing the first 4 in this post; the list includes an American-established institution, rice paddies carved out of whole mountainsides, an unusual burial place, and a huge limestone cave. 
I found this recent, very clear photo of Sagada shell fossils in Sumaging Cave at the TrekNature galleries. I've seen these imprints while I was in the cave more than a decade ago. It's supposed to be proof that Sagada, with its vast network of limestone caves was once underwater many thousands or millions of years ago. I'm not sure if they're fossils though - or they're actual shells. This particular picture is amazing in clarity because the ones pointed to me before were high up in a wall, and with only the Petromax light, I couldn't see the imprints very clearly. Visit this 
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