WHO KNOWS WHAT KIND OF MOOD I AM IN? All I know is that I want to be quiet, to walk long distances, to step so far back from home so I could see the bigger picture. I'd come at an opportune time: the tail end of summer, and the beginning of the rains guaranteed plenty of space. I'd only ever been to Sagada alone, and it's become somewhat of a habit to seek it out for retreat.
      I quickly found and checked in to a neat room in one of the larger inns overlooking the town square. It was curiously empty, though a quick scan of the registry revealed that there were a few others booked there. I unpacked my gear, took a bath to wash off the layers of dust from the ride, and went to see if there were any other places open at that dead hour. There were none: the doors were open, merchandise left unguarded in stores as everyone was inside for a nap. Or so I assume, anyway; they could have all fled, for all I knew. It was almost surreal, a town abandoned in the middle of the day, the quietest streets in the world empty but for me and a drunk passed out on somebody else's steps. Sagada is still so small that there are no names for the streets, and all you need to get from any one point in town to another is your two feet and fifteen minutes. The town is so small, in fact, that instead of a town square, the main plaza is half a square, a sliver of a triangle a few steps up from the town hall, and bordered by a number of inns.
      Coming to Sagada to be alone is either strange or greatly appropriate, depending on how you look at it. On the one hand, the little northern town has been a well-known backpackers' stop since the 70s, and since then has never wanted for visitors. However, in all those decades, nothing has changed the fact that it is remote, and therefore a good refuge for people who want to get away. After dark, the diners and inns start filling up with people who no longer have anything to do, and this is perhaps the only sociable part of the day. Everything else seems a solitary affair, though the numerous groups seem to belie that. I get the distinct impression that everyone--not just me--comes here to be alone; or when with friends, to be alone together.
      Sagada might actually be considered a major town hereabouts. Indeed, there are smaller towns that you pass through on the way here. Thanks to the efforts of the American Episcopalian missionary priest John Staunton--who in the early 1900s established a church, a high school, a convent, a hospital, a trading center, and other facilities for labor and commerce--Sagada has long been on its way to becoming a significant speck on the map since the turn of the last century.
      Saint Theodore's Hospital, St. Mary's High School, and the picturesque St. Mary's Church still stand as proud landmarks for the unpretentious community, signaling Sagada's relative prosperity. And yet, Sagada seems to be an afterthought of a town, its very topography careless, like an arm casually flung across the empty side of a bed.

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