What's up, Hive!
It's getting quite cold here in the Philippines right now. And it's even colder up north. Record temperatures were logged in Baguio City. We went there last January and I got to experience the cold for myself.
I'll be continuing here my adventures around Baguio City, the Summer Capital of the Philippines.
Strawberry Farm
$14 per kilo?
I was shocked to hear the price of strawberries for their Strawberry Picking.
My family and I arrived at the La Trinidad, Benguet to see the Strawberry Farm. This is Part 2 of my Adventures to Baguio. Technically, the Strawberry Farm is not in Baguio City. It's in La Trinidad, a municipality north of Baguio. We drove for half an hour to get there.
The weather was lovely that day, with clear skies and sunny. But the wind was cold and crisp. This is the reason why strawberries are farmed there.
Upon entering the farm, fresh strawberries and flocks of people welcomed us. There were so many tourists. We pushed our way through the crowd and entered the field. A lady asked us if we were going to do Strawberry Picking. That was the plan, but when we heard the price.
$14 per kilo?
I was shocked to hear the price of strawberries for their Strawberry Picking.
My brother said it wasn't worth it. We just entered the field to look at the strawberries. Rows and rows of strawberry plants filled the valley. They were fenced and some had plastic roofs. I could see ripe and juicy strawberries hanging and on the ground.
Someone told my brother that the price of strawberry picking would be lower if we walked all the way to the end of the field. So we did that. Along the way, we also saw some lettuce and sunflowers. We reached the end, but the price per kilo of picked strawberries only went down $2. We ended up buying strawberries that were already packed in plastic containers. They were still fresh, and we made sure to taste many of them to check if they were sweet. Some were quite sour, but it didn't matter, because we were free to taste them.
$14 per kilo?
I don't know if we bought a kilo, but we spent around $14 for the strawberries we bought. We didn't get to pick them, but it was enough to stroll around the fields before getting them.
Before leaving the farm, we bought some souvenirs and had our lunch. We ordered beef soup and unsurprisingly, it had strawberries in it. It made the soup sweet and sour, which was surprisingly good.
Mine's View Park
After having lunch, we made our way back to Baguio City. The next item on our itinerary was Mine's View Park. It's a park located with a view of the mountain ranges where locals used to mine gold, silver, and copper.
Parking in Baguio is horrible. After dropping my family at the park, I circled around twice to find a parking spot. And it wasn't near the park. I had to walk up steep roads. I was sweating when I arrived at the park. I took off my jacket and looked for my family.
I saw my parents wearing Igorot costumes. Of course, I had to join them. The rent was only less than $1. I thought it was a really good deal.
But we couldn't really move around the park in our costumes because there were so many people, and everyone was having their pictures taken. The costumes were also not allowed in the viewing deck for some reason. I only wore the costume for less than 15 minutes.
We left our costumes behind and went to the viewing deck. It was also packed there. I couldn't really enjoy the view. But I could see it, the magnificent Cordillera Mountain Ranges. Far beyond the mountains, I could see a sea of clouds hovering. I took a few photos before getting down from the view deck.
So many plants and flowers were sold in the park, and I know how my mother is crazy for them. It was too bad we couldn't bring them home because they're not allowed on planes.
I passed by a shop that sold coffee beans and although I still had coffee at home, I couldn't resist getting some dark roast Arabica beans from Sagada.
Wright Park
One of my childhood dreams is to ride a horse. I thought I didn't have the money to pay for it before, and I didn't like how you just get on the horse and have your photo taken. I wanted to be able to ride the horse around.
The main attraction in the park was horseback riding. My brother and I decided to go. I tried hard to keep my excitement, but my inner child was beaming. The people in charge took some time assigning our horses because they had to look for the bigger ones for us. We paid around $5 to ride the horse around the park for 30 minutes. We were each assigned a guide to direct the horse where to go.
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I thought getting on the horse was a bit scary because it was so tall, and I was afraid I would fall to my side. But my feet were well-secured and the saddle was quite comfortable.
And off we went. We went to the middle of the park where a track was there for the horses. I was a bit disappointed that the guide was going to hold the reins the whole time, but after a few minutes, I was glad they were there. This was the first time, and I wouldn't know what to do if the horse misbehaved.
After a few minutes of going around the track, I became quite comfortable and loosed my grip on the wooden horn of the saddle. And it was fun. I wanted the horse to go faster, but we couldn't. There were a lot of other riders around us and we had to keep some safe distance between them. Outside the track, though, there were expert riders who rode their horses very fast. They all looked really cool.
After going around in circles for around 20 minutes, my brother and I decided that we were good already. I was already quite satisfied with the experience. We went to have our pictures taken before we got off our horses.
Childhood dream, achieved.
That's it for this post! But our adventures aren't over yet. We still went to more famous spots in the city and made great memories as a family. We visited to some lovely restaurants such as Chocolate de Batirol, Lemon and Olives, and Hill Station. We also went to the Igorot Stone Kingdom and spent more time in Camp John Hay.
Be sure to look out for them. See you in the next one. Cheers!
Hiya, @livinguktaiwan here, just swinging by to let you know that this post made it into our Honorable Mentions in Travel Digest #2137.
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I'm glad you enjoyed visiting Benguet, I hope the traffic here didn't give you much stress though.
!PGM !COFFEE
It was quite bad. 😅 It was still stressful, but I managed my expectations. All in all, we really enjoyed out trip.
I'm enjoyed your post. Very colorful pictures. Congrats. Greetings from Cuba.
Wow what a complete tour, from the disappointment of skipping picking strawberries because of the high price, probably because of the touristic aspect, going through costumes and even fulfilling the dream of riding a horse. A nice family experience, you guys sure know how to make the most of a day trip hahaha.