Over the Mountains and Through the Palm Trees

Out of the mountains and down to the warm and lovely city of Vigan. Traveling around the island of Luzon is interesting to say the least. Everyone seems to have a different answer of how to get somewhere. We were starting to worry there may not be a way out of Bontoc. We could go to Banaue and back or to Sagada and back, but how do we get out of these mountains without taking the six hour bus ride on the windy, cliff-side highway back to Baguio and THEN over to the coast? Well, here's how:

We spent about three hours in Cervantes waiting for enough people to cram in a van before we could leave. Being a foreigner has been a very strange part of being in the Philippines. In some cities I felt like a princess. Police wanted photos with us, security guards went out of their way to serve us our fast food and get us the perfect table, the locals were extremely kind and helpful. In other cities, we felt very unwanted. Waiters wouldn't acknowledge us in restaurants, venders mocked us when we were too choosey about not wanting rotten or green fruit. No matter where we were though, people stared. This isn't just looking at you because you're different, it's staring until they run into a wall, it's pointing, it's peeking around corners to watch us walk by. Sometimes it's incredibly annoying, but most of the time it's just hilarious and the best is when it's little kids. There was a school near our van in Cervantes and the children could not get enough of  us.

We finally made it to Vigan after dark and found a cheap place to stay. In the morning, we found a much nicer place right on the lovely cobblestone Calle Crisologo.

just outside our hotel

 good morning!

Every January for the past decade, Vigan has held a festival for their longganisa sausages and we just happened to be there during the celebration. There were different events happening each night (we missed the Search for Miss Gay unfortunately) and the week ended with a big parade.

sausage fest

a traditional longganisa breakfast

greasy longganisa emanada-nothing like the delicious empanadas in South America