Ilocandia Experience - Part 1

A group of us decided to jump into a van and go up north to the Ilocos.  My mother was from Ilocos Sur, but growing up in the 50's 60's, we had rarely gone to the Ilocos Province for fear of the "unknown" warring political factions of that time.  My eyes were as wide as a saucer as I was taking in the sights of our travel passing through towns and municipalities of La Union, getting a glimpse of famous towns and cities of Ilocos such as Candon till we reached Vigan, Ilocos Sur, our destination for the day.

Ping and Louee knew places and people in the towns which we visited.  They had booked a cottage within the Benedictine compound and the Mother Superior was gracious enough to open the doors for us and guide us to our cottage. There were seven of us in the group (including our driver), but the cottage was so big, it probably houses 30 people at any given time during a retreat.  We checked in or rather dumped our luggages and off again we went to start our Ilocos Orientation.

Our Lady of Fatima Grotto @ The Benedictine Compound
(L-R);  Aurora, Ping, Vickie, GloV, Estela