Baguio After 24 Years: Lourdes Grotto

(Part 12 of a 14-part series)

at the Lourdes Grotto in Baguio

Earlier in the trip, there had been a confusion on where that long stairs on my old photo was. I thought it was in Baguio Cathedral. But I was reminded that it was in Lourdes Grotto because of the man who approached us offering his tour services when we were in Wright Park. Thus, we made sure to head that way before we go back to Manila.

We had already checked out of the hotel, bought our ticket to the 3:00 PM bus bound to Caloocan, ate our lunch, yet we still had to go to Lourdes Grotto. It was already past 1:00 PM then, but the very insistent and persistent me just couldn't allow us to go home without heading there.

Lourdes Grotto was on the other side, not covered by the route of the Plaza-Mines View Park jeep, but by the jeep going to Dominican. We did not bother with the jeep since we were at a lack of time, and took a cab instead.

Just like what we experienced at Wright Park and Burnham Park, the moment we stepped out of the cab, vendors approached us. This time, they were selling candles, but we didn't intend to light up candles so we just ignored them. Noteworthy though was the fact that there were also vendors upstairs, selling those candles at a much lower price.

So, this is the stairs.

Climbing the stairs of Lourdes Grotto was quite a workout, especially that I haven't done trekking for quite a while. I asked for a couple of take-fives, and when we're near the top, Boots just pulled me all the way. Ironically, a couple of days after our trip there, The Amazing Race Philippines has shown a challenge asking the teams to count the number of steps, and because I didn't want to recall how hard it was, I didn't place any effort to memorize the real answer but it was at 200+.

my own grotto :D

The thrilling part of this visit was that it was almost 2:00 PM when we were done, and we still had to go to the market, to Good Shepherd, and to Mines View Park to buy our pasalubong, within an hour. To make things worse, it took quite a while before the jeep filled up, and we faced a queue in Good Shepherd (read the whole story here). We had to move quickly and pray to reach the Victory Liner bus terminal in time, since we already had our tickets for the 3:00 PM trip.

Because I've been consistently lucky in pulling off these "nick of time" items in the itinerary, we were able to survive. And that, folks, ends our what-seemed-so-long-yet-it-was-just-overnight trip to Baguio. On the next part of this series, brace yourselves for photos of a 3-year old girl unearthed from only I know where, and the itinerary will be shared on the last part. :)

Next: Baguio After 24 Years: Photographs Then and Now