How Most Pictures I Have of Sagada Are of People's Backs

Drummer and Hunter walking ahead in Sagada

Sagada had been an accident, in that I had not expected to be there. It had always been that place that former co-workers would bring up enthusiastically and rent vans to whenever they tired of Baguio. "Sagada has great Lemon Pies," they would say, and so Sagada was to me up until that point, That Place with the Great Lemon Pies. And so, having inherited the partiality for lemons and all things sour--having a citrus for a name also somewhat at fault for this need, i think--I put it in my mind that one day I would go to Sagada for their lemon pies.

Until, one day in November, while in Bontoc waiting for a bus back to Manila, Hunter casually grinned and said, "Let's go to Sagada." I shrugged. I trusted him with my life, and I shrugged. One should take note that even the most lighthearted things that people who have lived here their whole lives say, have roots in conviction. It is only best that you--tourist, visitor, transient, passersby--just go along. These mountains are greater than doubt, or fear.