Sagada: St. Mary's, Echo Valley, Hanging Coffins

Next part of our itinerary was a trip to the Echo Valley where we could see the famous Hanging Coffins. Our van brought us back to the hotel so we could get cleaned up and we had a quick lunch before being dropped off at the Church of St. Mary the Virgin, the starting point of our nature hike. It was quite funny that the church was actually just a stone's throw away from our hotel and yet our van still drove us there. :) 

The Church of St. Mary the Virgin is an Episcopal parish. It has a pretty interesting altar that seems to have been constructed from the limestone that is found all around Sagada. (According to our guides, the limestone as well as some seashell fossils found in the area are proof that the Philippines was once under water). 

We then start our nature trek through Echo Valley. We passed by a small cemetery along the way. 

I didn't check the itinerary so I wasn't sure where we were going. Our guide told us we were heading down into the valley but didn't tell us what we would see there. Nevertheless, the views while heading down were beautiful. 

Finally, our guide brings us to the hanging coffins. She explained to us that the locals have a few choices for their final resting place - it can be the hanging coffins, the Lumiang coffins (which we didn't get to see), or a cemetery. Some of the coffins are shorter than others, but this is because the deceased was placed in the fetal position. 

It was around 3:30pm when we returned to our starting point, and we decided to take a few more photos. I believe this bell used to be in the belfry of the church. 

Our tour companions decided to return to the hotel for some much-needed rest but my family decided to try out some of the recommended food places in Sagada. I read about "Yellow House" which serves some pretty good pies and suggested it to my mom, so we asked our transport to bring us there. We ended up ordering coffee and five slices of pie: 2 blueberry pies (my favorite), 2 lemon pies (really good), and 1 egg pie (it was just okay). The lemon pie and egg pie both cost P25 per slice while the blueberry pie cost P35 per slice. Very cheap! We shopped for some souvenirs before heading back to the St. Joseph Resthouse. We decided to just have dinner in the St. Joseph Cafe. It was a very tiring day with all of us severely lacking sleep and we knew we had to be up by 430am so we called it a night at around 9pm.