Road Tours

Preparing our road tour schedules. January and February are for seminars and trade shows.

We kick off our trip in March with extensive visits to our homebase and bailiwick...Northern Luzon, Cagayan Valley :) We will be with some of our agri friends and journalists who want to take that route with us and experience the agriculture movements in this place.

Have you seen the ritual of Pinikpikan? It is slowly beating the chicken to death. Blood clotted, it is slow cooked with some aged pork. I have eaten Pinikpikan several times, but haven't seen the ritual too. It will be interesting. Some may scream animal rights and abuse....but then, this is part of the culture of the Cordillera Region and is accepted as part of the heritage.

Cordillera folks had been very discriminating in what they use for their ritual of Pinikpikan. Sunshine Chicken passed it for its raising qualities and taste imparted :)

So we go Isabela onwards.....

Ambuclao Dam

Decided to go to Baguio, Sunday...but an unexpected 3rd radio guesting delayed us. So opted for an early Monday trip.

I always look forward to going up North. Stop at S.O.U.L. Cafe is a must, too bad no Green Tea Latte available yesterday. My dealer made sure we are able to have Pinikpikan, the "killing me softly" chicken. It was really good and tasty, made more so because of her 90day Sunshine. One chicken fed 6 adults, of course we also had a big plate of pancit. The cook was her brother, who also mans the brooding area. Was he sad to make Pinikpikan?

We also saw the location in Tam-Awan of the soon to be demo farm there. You can feel the artist's air all around. We were even joking that the campfire and storytelling area is perfect for inihaw na manok or to sit around a kaldero of Pinikpikan.

We found out that the road from Benguet to Nueva Vizcaya is passable. They said it takes 5hrs, but we decided to try it anyway as Doc Rey figured that the 5hrs they noted was timed taking the bus. We passed by Ambuclao Dam! Never been there, and just hear it over the radio when it alarms Luzon about impending flood from expected water release :) After the dam, it was rough road....after about 30mins we decide to ask....the road was leading to Baguio using another route :)

Off we back tracked, we had to cross the spillway. Went up the mountains to see the dam from a scenic vantage point.

Arrived Aritao in 3.5hrs....but remember we got lost. That was a huge savings in time, relaxing winding roads, great view. We vowed to do Baguio more often and visit La Union and Pangasinan real soon.

Mid February for sure in Benguet for the much awaited seminars.