Hello, Hive!
A bit MIA lately, but I'm back! In this post, I'll continue sharing our adventures around Baguio City with you. Last time, I chronicled Day 2 of our trip, which we spent going to a strawberry farm and the different parks around the city.
Igorot Stone Kingdom
Igorot Stone Kingdom--one of the places that would pop up if you search for the tourist spots around Baguio City. Naturally, we included this in our itinerary. My brother and I organized this trip. He visited Baguio a few months back before our trip, and there were places he wanted to visit again. One of the places he was not able to go to was the Igorot Stone Kingdom. So, on our 3rd day in Baguio City, we went there.
I drove us to the northwestern part of the city to get to our first destination of the day. There were mountains there filled with houses, and from afar, it looked like the houses were dangerously constructed along the sides of the mountains. But when we arrived there, the houses looked safely built, and there were even wide roads.
From my experience the past few days in Baguio, I have steeled myself to expect difficult parking. And difficult it was indeed. We were lucky that a car had just come out of the parking lot, and we happened to pass by. We immediately went inside and parked. We were shocked to see that their parking fee was expensive, more than what we'd paid before.
We came out to the scorching hot sun. We were in Baguio, one of the oldest cities in the Philippines, but the cold could not protect us from the hot sun that day. I was sweating in my sweater, and I even had a scarf on. I wanted nothing more than to wear a light T-shirt.
We climbed up the stone steps toward the entrance. I was a bit worried for my father because he's been struggling with stairs for quite some time. He gets out of breath. I told him to take it slow. We reached the entrance, and I was shocked to see so many people. You'd think the place was so amazing.
We paid a price of P100 (USD1.8) per person for the entrance fee. We thought it was a bit pricey. We went in and saw a grand park constructed with stones upon stones. It reminded me of ancient Southeast Asian temple cities. While that may sound like a good thing, I think it's a bit inappropriate because the park has the "Igorot" name on it. They are a group of ethnic people in northern Luzon, and I don't think about stone kingdoms when I hear about the Igorot.
Regardless, I still tried to enjoy my time in the park. Most of the people there were there for the photos. My mother looked really happy to have her photos taken under the giant Igorot statues and stone arches. We climbed all the way up to one side of the stone park and got a nice view of the entire park and the mountains of Baguio. Coming down, we even saw a live performance of an Igorot dance by some young people. They were wearing costumes, revealing a lot of skin for the young men because the 'bahag' only covered a small portion of their bodies.
There was still the other side of the park, but we decided not to go there anymore because we were already hungry, and the sun was just unbearable. We left the place, but there were still so many people coming in. One thing I really noticed about the tourist spots in Baguio was that most of the tourists were Filipino. You could hardly see foreigners, which was understandable because foreigners come to the Philippines for our beaches and resorts. Filipinos also love going to 'Instagrammable' places.
We get our money's worth from the pictures we take.
Igorot Stone Kingdom, if you want good photos with layers of rock terraces, columns, and giant statues in your background, then this place is for you.
Lemon and Olives
We scrambled our way back to the car and put the AC on full blast. We wanted nothing more than to get away from the crowd and the heat. I drove us back to the city proper and to Camp John Hay, where we would be having our lunch.
My brother recommended a place where we would go. It's a Greek restaurant called Lemon and Olives. Ever since I discovered My Greek Taverna, I've been a fan of Greek food. But beyond the food, my brother raved about the view from the restaurant. We were lucky to be seated on the balcony of the restaurant with a view of the Cordillera mountains and the pine trees.
My parents aren't picky eaters, but if you asked them what they liked, they would give the classic Filipino choices: soup and fish. But we were in a Greek restaurant, so I had to let them try Greek food. We had hummus, Greek salad, Greek-style spaghetti, Souvlaki plate, Manestra soup, grilled fish, and Baklava and Greek yogurt. It was a hearty lunch!
We also had some tea and coffee. We would have stayed longer at that lovely restaurant, but we were parked in front of another car, and the owner and his companions had to get out of the parking area.
Camp John Hay
We decided to look for a spot in Camp John Hay where we could relax. The Camp had a lot of free parks where people could lounge and play. We found a small clearing and saw a lot of people having picnics. My brother brought us further to a hill full of pine trees. It had really good spots for picture taking. We took turns taking snaps of each other. I sat down and leaned on a pine tree and tried to enjoy the moment. It was nice being able to just chill on the soft brown grass under the shade of the pine trees with your family.
After 3 days of going around Baguio City, we were pretty tired already. We originally had a lot of places we planned on visiting on this day, but we didn't want to pressure ourselves and our parents, so after spending our afternoon in Camp John Hay, we went home to our Airbnb to take a nap before we went out in the evening for our dinner.
That's it! For now! Baguio City still has so many things to offer. We spent the night at a lovely restaurant to celebrate my mother's birthday, and the next day, we had our final hours in Baguio before going back to Manila to visit a famous mall inspired by Venice. I'll share them with you in my next post. Cheers!
