We woke up this morning and found out that we were supposed to have ordered breakfast the night before…. womp womp. Fortunately, we had snacks! We had learned from our last road trip that you can only eat so much McDonald’s before you start losing your soul. And so, we came prepared with many snacks. And this day it saved our lives. Our guide, Armen, came at 7:30 and we set out in our car. Oh. My. Gulay. The drive was CRAZY. For several reasons:
- Steepest roads I have ever seen. We spent most of the drive in 1st gear. FIRST GEAR, PEOPLE!!
- A single lane in several places. For traffic in heading both directions. No shoulders. (Above, top image) You had to back up if someone was coming from the other direction.
- Twistiest roads ever. ‘Nuff said.
- The road was covered in rocks, mud, and debris from the insane thunderstorm from the night before. (Above, bottom image). We weren’t the first people to have driven along here this morning, Or I’m guessing we would have been forced to stop and move rock off the road.
It was an amazing drive despite the white knuckles. Cause, look at this:
This whole area was just gorgeous. So of course, we had to take a cute family photo. #cutefamilyphoto
I’ve said this so many times, but wow. Everything is just so beautiful and green in the Philippines.
And also, look at these hanging houses!! Can you believe that!? Can you imagine living there? I wonder if they just have a constant feeling of vertigo or if it eventually goes away….
Eventually we got to the end of the road. Literally. The road just stopped. And so we parked. (We heard later that they are planning on extending this road so that eventually, people won’t have to hike in to see the terraces, they’ll be able to drive the whole way. Which honestly, I think is kind of sad. Though I understand why.)
We put on sunscreen, I strapped Logan to my chest and we started hiking in. We were seriously in the jungle. The sounds and the plants were just so… jungle-y…. yeah….
Everything was downhill at this point. Which was good and bad. Going downhill is less strenuous, but you’re much more likely to fall. This is especially true with little people. So, we were pretty cautious on our way down.
Juju ended up doing a little somersault anyway. Fortunately, he chose a good spot: no cliffs! And it was just a single step down, so he stopped pretty quickly. Plus, Armen was walking in front of him.
We hiked through the jungle for a while. And, along the way we walked through several hanging houses, where they sold drinks, snacks, and a few souvenir items. And it was in one of these hanging houses that we saw what is known as the Amphitheater:
It’s valley that is just covered in terraces. It was unbelievable. I wish our pictures could do justice to this place. It was simply amazing.
One of the most amazing things about these terraces is that they are seriously old. They were constructed over 2,000 years ago. No wonder they are a UNESCO world heritage site!! We felt very fortunate to be here.
In one of these little hanging houses, we saw these little kids that had built themselves little cars out of gatorade bottles. And when I say they built it themselves, I’m not kidding. We saw a little guy (probably 6 years old) using a knife to poke holes in his gatorade bottle for wheels. Clara and Juju were obsessed. We only managed to drag them away after taking a picture and promising to make our own at home.
At this point, things were starting to get a little steeper. Armen started carrying Juju down the crazy parts, and then allowing him to walk when things calmed down. We continued down the side of the mountain, heading down toward the terrace-lined valley.
Of course, all along the way, there were amazing views. I hope you appreciate the restraint I am showing in not posting Every. Last. Picture.
The path we were following suddenly exited the jungle smack into the middle of the terraces. It really was very sudden.
And we just walked along on top of the walls.
I thought we were just going to walk along a single level the whole time. But then Armen started moving from our current level, to the one below it. 
Note: the picture above was taken on our way back up, but it gives you an idea of what the ‘stairways’ looked like. This particular spot actually has a little cement staircase. This was downright fancy compared to most places.
Most of the ‘stairways’ were basically piles of rocks that you had to scramble down to get to the level below. And each level was probably between 8- 10 feet tall.
It was a little nerve-wracking doing this with little kids. At this point, we were really starting to wonder if Armen really knew what ‘kid-friendly ‘meant…. Then we realized he probably was thinking about the local kids who are basically little billy goats. I don’t think many Americans bring their kids here…
Either way, I’m glad that we didn’t know what we were in for, or we may not have done it!! And what a shame that would have been!!
In the end, no injuries. #prayersareanswered We went down and across on several levels of the terraces.
All the while, with views that were absolutely mind-bogglingly beautiful.
It was amazing to see the locals traverse the levels of the terraces. They went up and down like it was nothing (even with big loads in their arms.) Just, up and down, easy as pie. And Armen managed to carry Juju up and down these levels. #toughguy. We couldn’t have done this without him.
Of course, there were a few more stops along the way.
Originally, the plan was that we would hike in to Tapiya falls. And we started down an extremely steep flight of stairs that led to the falls. At this point, we had several concerns:
- We had already been hiking/traversing for about 3 hours
- Everything had been downhill so far, meaning everything on the way out was going to be uphill.
- Juju was already getting tired
- We had already drunk more than half of our water (and we didn’t realize that there’d be places along the way to buy water, so we’d left our cash…)
- It was another hour to the falls.
- We still had a 7 hour drive ahead of us to get to Baguio.
We decided to heed the advice of the immortal TLC: https://m.popkey.co/3d021d/Q57QV.gif . Who are we to argue with 90’s pop songs? And so, we decided to head back up. This ended up being a very good decision.
The way back up was strenuous, but it wasn’t as scary for the kids as going down. What had taken us 3 hours to descend took us half that time to ascend. Clara especially was a little mountain goat. Juju did pretty well, but still needed to be carried for the particularly difficult parts.
By the time we returned to the car, we were completely out of water. Cause it was freaking hot and humid. And we were hiking. And carrying children. So yeah, good decision to turn around when we did. 
Something that helped immensely, was flipping the baby carrier around, so that I wore Logan like a backpack. I felt like Luke Skywalker. Except not. Because it wasn’t terribly comfortable, and it highlighted certain parts of my anatomy that I would prefer not to highlight. But dang, what a difference. I didn’t feel like I was hiking pregnant any more. It was SOOOOO much easier. That whole center of gravity thing….it makes a difference. Plus, he fell asleep! Score! #totallyworththeawkward #iwillneverseethesepeopleagain.
After doing this, Jonathan and I have regularly commented “We hiked Batad with three kids, we can do anything.” Because this was extremely difficult!! But, it was also incredibly rewarding and cool, and we were even able to recognize that at the time. (Well, for the most part)
Wogie was getting pretty sick of the baby carrier at one point, so we decided that we would take a break. Of course, Jonathan and I could have easily continued. But, we were thinking of the kids. 🙂
Armen took us a slightly different way on the way out, so that we could take a picture with the ‘Welcome to Batad’ sign. #nailedit. Those kids are such troopers. They were put through the wringer today.
Juju really started getting tired at this point, and so Jonathan carried him. He’s so tough. Because, again, this was quite the hike. And as we got closer to the road, it got more and more slippery, this did not help matters.
Eventually, we made it back to the car and began the drive back toward Banaue town. Juju fell asleep immediately, in the most awkward position I’ve ever seen.
We headed back to the Rice Homestay and said goodbye to Armen. The people who ran the Rice homestay offered us the leftover noodles from their lunch (they had a ton left over). We gratefully accepted our first real meal of the day. It was about 2 pm by this point. We quickly ate and got on the road. We drove out the way that we drove in, on that same beautiful road. At one point, we stopped at a local woodworking shop and bought a couple of souvenirs. 🙂 It was a nice afternoon.
Eventually we got onto the road to Baguio. The map app told us it was 80 miles. And it would take us 4 hours? We just assumed it was a miscalculation or something. But, as soon as we got going on that road we understood why. It was literally 4 hours of driving in 2nd gear. That was the second twistiest, windiest, steepest road I have ever driven on (trumped only by the road we drove on to get to the Batad rice terraces earlier this day). So, we literally drove that entire 80 mile stretch at 25 mph, in second gear. We couldn’t get up the inclines in a higher gear and going downhill would’ve been completely unsafe.
By the time we finally got to Baguio, we were so. incredibly. fed up with that twisty road. Driving at 25 mph is pretty maddening. We finally got to our hotel in Baguio at about 9:30. We were starving, so we ordered room service sandwiches. And then we slept. Like the dead.
