An Escape from Lowland Heat!

My joining a local Backpack Photography 101 class is not only an escape from the lowland heat of the city. It was not even just to learn photography basics with people i haven't even met. It was a lot of things; and a response to the urging of following some intuition. I will not be telling you about the intuition, hehe, but i will share with you some photos of the area.

The Backpack Photography 101 Workshop is an exploratory offer of two male travel photographers for learning basic photography in a natural setting. This first group was in Banaue, Ifugao Province in the Cordillera Mountains. All nine of us participants are females.

Banaue, Ifugao province is nine hours by bus from Manila. It is famous for the Banaue Rice Terraces, which is a UNESCO World Heritage site. It is known to be 2,000 to 6,000 years old. Aside from the Banaue Rice terraces there are 4 other similar terraces; the Batad, Mayoyao, Hapao and Kiangan rice terraces. We were able to trek the rice terraces in Hapao.  Other terraces sites were just viewed from the view deck along the highway.

Banaue Ethnic Village Resort, at the middle of the mountain, where we stayed for 3 nights

The newly evolved traditional Ifugao hut, where we slept for the night, already with hot water and bath!

The boat pond near the swimming pool, water is not difficult in the area of the resort.  Most of us wake up early each morning to savor the cold and take advantage of the nice shooting conditions, like the two photos below.

A portion of the terraces viewed from the viewdeck.

A bigger view of that same terraces

We were shown the traditional dance of the Ifugaos for different events,  the rituals before killing animals for food, and showed the native style of cooking it, while the group had fun in shooting every angle they feel nice for the viewfinder!

The Hapao area we were able to trek and experience. This is comparatively not the very vertical terraces.

We exchanged places in riding the top load for better views and the delightful experience of doing it for the first time. We saw lots of foreigners doing the same. The right photo shows the cracking rice fields due to water shortage in Hapao.

Not only were we able to scape the city heat, we were able to experience a lot of things including photography, understand better the cultural heritage of the Ifugaos and the rice terraces, but also bonded with newly found friends.