Before heading to El Nido, we had a day in Puerto Princesa where we enjoyed some different food, a/c, a good hot shower, and of course, internet (mainly to buy a flight back to Thailand). The next morning we made it to the bus terminal in plenty of time to get a spot on the a/c bus going to El Nido. The six hour journey on the a/c bus wasn't really too bad. The road was pretty rough the last 2 hours, but thanks to Bolivia's unpaved roads we were used to it :-).
El Nido was much more touristy than Port Barton, but overall not too bad, and there seemed to be plenty to do to keep people busy. The scenery in the bay was impressive with the limestone cliffs, blue water, and white sand. There wasn't a lot of swimming in the main bay, but there were other beaches that were more suitable for swimming.
The town of El Nido seemed a little congested, but that's probably due to the fact that the town has seen a 250% increase in tourism in the last 2 years!! Lots of development in a short amount of time to accommodate the large influx of tourists. On a side note, it's interesting to watch the Filipinos construct or work on buildings. There are no real safety standards in the Philippines: they all work in flip flops, jeans and t-shirts/ tanks, and of course no hard hat of any kind. We forgot to get a picture of the real congestion or construction.
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| quiet side street in town |
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| main bay |
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| main bay |
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| main bay |
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| Corong Corong beach |
A nice place, and not overcrowded, was a beach south of town with a perfect view to enjoy the sunsets. The afternoon we went to the beach things seemed to align perfectly for an incredible sunset. The intensity and wide array of colors against the cliffs was just WOW. Please forgive the overload of sunset photos, it's so hard to chose our (okay- Kristin's) favorites.
Just in case that wasn't enough pictures of sunsets for you, here's a few more from different beaches in El Nido. This view never gets old (at least for Kristin)! Palawan has some stunning sunsets!
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| bay on Corong Corong beach |
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| Cute kids on the beach who wanted to show us the sand crabs |
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| Corong Corong beach sunset |
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| Corong Corong beach sunset |
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| Corong Corong beach sunset |
In addition to enjoying the beaches and sunsets, there were plenty of island hopping options to choose from. We found out after our tour that apparently "Tour C" was the best of all the choices; however, we had no idea at the time of choosing and went with "Tour A". We saw the Small Lagoon, Big Lagoon, Secret Lagoon, and two beaches. There wasn't much snorkeling on the day we went, but the lagoons were breathtaking! We were told that at one point in time the island had a huge cave in the middle, then the roof fell in creating two different lagoons aptly named: big and small lagoon. It was quite extraordinary what nature has created through the years. The lagoons impressed us and made up for the lack of snorkeling. Although the lagoons were quite crowded with other tourists, it didn't take away from the beauty in front of us.
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| entrance to Small Lagoon |
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| inside Small Lagoon |
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| inside Small Lagoon |
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| small cave at Small Lagoon |
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| swimming through the hole to see the cave |
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| inside Small Lagoon |
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| More clown fish...the only fish we saw |
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| traffic jam at Small Lagoon |
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| entering Big Lagoon |
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| in the middle of Big Lagoon |
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| Big Lagoon |
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| Big Lagoon |
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| lunch stop on the beach |
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| tour guide's 9 to 5 |
We also made it to the "secret" lagoon which we had to wade around some rock walls and through a small opening to get into. Pretty neat how it was formed, yet the murkiness of the water inside the walled-off lagoon made it less impressive than the other lagoons.
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| stop for Secret Lagoon |
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| holed entrance to Secret Lagoon |
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| Secret Lagoon stop |
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| more of Secret Lagoon |
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| beach at Secret Lagoon |
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| beach at Secret Lagoon |
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| Seven Commando beach |
It seemed that the "water gods" wanted us to be done with the ocean. In particular, Matt's mask broke after our last snorkel expedition. Although he thought he had somewhat fixed it, turns out, there was no fixing it and it was no longer functional. On top of that, the sea was more rough than normal (the next day the water was extremely calm). Fortunately our boat could handle it, but the water off the beach at lunch wasn't exactly inviting to take a swim. And our final stop, well, there were about a million jelly fish in the water. Despite all the little inconveniences, we had a great time touring around the beautiful islands of El Nido.
We didn't have a flight out of Palawan until the 23rd, so we had plenty of time to do whatever we wanted for the next couple of days. Somehow, kayaking and/or renting a motorbike didn't workout for us, but that's okay because we thought we'd just relax and take it easy. Kristin had seen a few places to get a pedicure and thought now was as good a time as any to get her first pedicure of the trip and get Matt's first pedicure ever.
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| Hmmm, not so keen on this pedicure thing |
You know a pedicure, with a foot scrub, leg massage, washing, cutting, trimming, painting, etc. As it turned out, we got the worst "pedicures" ever. We use the term pedicure loosely. The whole process involved sitting down (not even rinsing our feet) some cuticle cutting, pink toe gunk, a clear coat that picked up the pink toe gunk color (that left Matt with shiny, pink toenails), and a color change for Kristin.
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| Matt's pink toes |
No scrubbing, no leg rub, no relaxation. Kristin tried to convince Matt that a normal pedicure is much better than this. Kristin has her own nail polish with her so that she can just paint her own toes along the way. She does a better job painting her toes than they did. We kept justifying it to ourselves by saying, "Well at least we helped the local economy, right?".
After walking around town and getting some information, we decided to spend the next couple of days at a quiet spot outside of town. Stay tuned for El Nido continued.
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