The Dubai Chronicles

Friday, January 12, 2007

zambales: sagrada familia caves

continuing the trek, we woke up early and orly decided to take us to the sagrada familia caves in sta. cruz (near to our place). having a good night's sleep and a hefty breakfast, we're in full battle gear and head out to the mountains to seek the caves.

200 steps and counting...


going up to the caves was a challenging trek (once again). meeting up manong on the foot of the mountain (manong calls it as a hill), he acted as our tour guide in leading to the mouth of sagrada familia. the road was rough then followed by a steps made of rough rocks, it was long and tiring hike. good thing was we were trained from the sagada trek and seem to get used to do hiking. my friend cris counted (and gasping for air while doing it) the steps to a total of 300 from start till the entrance.

entrance to the shrine


and so arrived and got what we wanted. after unloading the bags, we did our usual gig... photography.

one of the caves


...and another


the caves are usually packed during the summer and most especially the season of holy week where pilgrims gather and pray. manong told us there were many caves aside from the ones we've visited. he also mentioned that there's a big waterfall nearby. due to time constraints we weren't able to visit all of them including the famous shrine where there's a statue-like stone formation of mary and jesus.

once again, the (un)holy group hug


after we're done, we descended back to town, ate lunch and left for manila. the zambales trek was too short for us but the sights are worth it if you have the right contacts and timing. i'll be back again there someday. :)

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