Caving, Birthday Parties and Historic Mummies!

• Sherrypace's Profile
• About this blog
• Entry from Tublay, Benguet

Trip Start Mar 21, 2006 Previous
Entry Trip End Oct 05, 2008 Next
Entry

  Tublay, Benguet, Philippines
Saturday, January 27, 2007

Greeting's to all!

Since my last entry I have finally entered one of the caves I am working with, my little host cousin Shiosa had her 3rd Birthday, and I was able to witness an indigenous Ibaloi ritual and see the famous mummies located in the Municipality of Kabayan. Needless to say this entry is full of wonderful pictures so I hope you enjoy!


A few weeks ago after scheduling the First Aid Training with the caves guide some of my office mates and I entered Benagano Cave in Barangay Ambongdolan. There are many caves spread throughout the North Luzon Region, the most famous being the highly visited caves in Sagada, Mountain Province. Prior to entering the caves here, I had heard rumors that the rock formations in our caves were much more preserved then in Sagada

Amazing Rock Formations (the round table)

. This was indeed the truth!! While the cave here is much shorter than Sagada (it only takes about an hour to get through) the rock formations are out of this world. The stalactites and stalagmites are well preserved. While the caves guides need a bit more training as far as communicating with their guest, the caves of Tublay have the potential to be a wonderful eco-tourism attraction. I was also very pleased to see that since the environmental education seminar I conducted in October, the community has placed trash bins all throughout their community and along the road leading to the caves. I am not sure if this was at all inspired by the workshop, but I was very happy to see a cleaner and more environmentally sound community in Ambongdolan! Kudos to them all!!

Last week I had the opportunity to visit another Municipality of Benguet. Kabayan is located about four hours northeast of Tublay and is known as the root of Ibaloi culture. It also is the home of Mount Pulag the second tallest mountain in the Philippines and is one of two cultures (Egypt and here) in the world that formerly practiced mummification of their dead. While the practice here ended in the earl 1900's there are still well over 20 mummies lying in coffins throughout Kabayan. Over the years the Mummies have become world famous and brought a lot of attention to the community and people of Kabayan. Last Friday there was a German TV station doing a special on the mummies so I went with my office for the filming. Pretty amazing to see the mummies and get to see the native rituals performed by the local elders. Historically all Ibaloi communities have a Mambuno (elder or native priest). This person is in charge of leading all rituals within the community and also looks at the liver and heart of the newly killed pig (a pig must be killed at every ritual and gathering) to identify whether it is safe to let the mummies out or whatever the activity of the day might be

Amazing tunnels and rock views

. It was very fun to be able to speak a little Ibaloi with the older community members, and I could see how surprised and excited they were to hear an American that could speak their sadly, dying language.

I just found out that I am attending a Project Design and Management (PDM) Conference sponsored by Peace Corps with my supervisor next week. In order to be eligible to apply for small grants sponsored by Peace Corp and USAID we have to attend a PDM. I am reaching a point with many of my projects where access to funds is a necessity and it is a huge challenge to secure funds locally. I am hoping attending this conference will help lead to funds in the near future. I will be flying down to Dumaguete in the Visayas for the conference and am looking forward to making a weekend of it and snorkeling amongst the famous reefs in Apo Island. This will also give me a chance to scout out some of the fun places for my sister Heidi and I to check out when we go back down to that area during her visit in Mid-March.

As always I hope this e-mail finds you well and I am sending love and hugs to all!

Peace,

Sherry

Post your own travel photos for friends and family More Pictures

Amzing rock formations	Bamboo Trail at farm (one of my favorite spots)	Bean's Stacey and I planted	Climbing up the tree
Close up of the soon to be picked bean's	Coffins in the cave	Cooking the Turkey's in the earth	Getting ready for the repelling
Group outside Cave path	Haning by a thread... I mean rope!	Head shot of the mummy	Host Cousin Kenny enjoying the horseback riding
Joy after a successful trip down the rope!	JR riding the wooden horse at the farm	Little cowboy JR riding a horse	Local women helping prepare the food
Mambuno in Kabayan (Native Priest)	Manang Andrea and I	Me and some of the host cousins	Me and some of the women in Kabayan
Me and the many host cousins	Me in the cave #2	Me inside the cave	Me with Moses and his kids (he works at the farm)
Me with some of the stalagmites (amazing!)	More Mullberry	More views of Kabayan	Mouth of the cave
Mullberry Trees I helped plant at the fram	Mummy shot #2	Native Poinsetta	Office mates and Cave guides outside path to cave
Our Guide leading the way!	Outside cave with office mate Felix	Path leading to the cave (Our Guide in the Pic)	Perfect natural steps
Preparing for the launch	Rock formation begining of cave entry	Some of the B-day Party Guest in a Nipa	Some of the extended host family
The mummy	The mummy leaving the cave	Van and I in Kabayan	View back to mouth of cave at entry
View from a Nipa at the Farm	View of community above the caves.	View of Mount Pulog in Kabayan (2nd tallest in PH)	View of the river near the caves (exited this way)
Views in Kabayan

Slideshow Print this entry Share San Fernando Pampanga hotels

Previous Entry Next Entry