El Nido - Tour A

We had decided to embark on an island hopping tour via our “resort” in El Nido called the Four Seasons Resort. I’ll get to the resort later, but for now the tour will do.








We meandered through the resort’s mud flats to our sturdy boncha boat, pronounced BONKA, but the CH makes it sound a little more chic. There were two guides that made us feel as though we were back in our prime guiding the Dead, Kennebec, and Nob. Like the other guides we worked with, these guys were all of 20 yrs. old and bullet proof. Quick to smile, we got one of their names, Jollifer. He was the expert snorkler and often got in the water with us. The other smiley, made sure that our lunches were safe and no one was going to take our towels.



We first explored the aptly named, “Small Lagoon”. In case you are wondering as we did, what constitutes a lagoon from anything else: a body of water cut off from a larger body by a reef of sand, rock or coral. We could see that at lower tides it would be cut off and higher tides, get replenished with salt water from the ocean. We were the second team to arrive at this pit stop of the island hopping races of boncha boats. We were very impressed with the high walls of limestone that had been weathered by thousands of years of the elements.






We found one underwater archway to swim through (or under?) and another cave that opened up to a cavern. It was really beautiful and for someone who isn’t that excited to go underwater, it was worth everything second of anxiety I suffered to see what was on the other side.



It was amazing scenery under the water as well. The life that was been shared was unique and everything you would hope to find in the tropics from coral, shellfish, and fish. Some fish were braver and more inquisitive than others, so close up were available at times. Other times, throwing a piece of bread or some rice gathered up the needed courage to get closer to us. I felt a little bad about offering these foods high in Carb’s when that probably isn’t in their natural diet…they didn’t seem to mind the splurge and indulgence.



We proceeded to Big Lagoon, Hidden Lagoon, and other tricky named places including Commando Beach, which luckily did not live up to its name in military or other implied meanings of apparel (or lack there of). We were out for about 6 hours in total.




Had a wonderful lunch at Secret Beach. The boys got a fire going and prepped a protein packed lunch of fish, chicken, and porkchops. The packed some rice that was cooked three days ago and better for snowballs and fishfood as later proved. It was a gorgeous, right on the beach, hardly anyone around, and the weather was perfect, partly sunny and a slight breeze….ahhh!


We visited a few more treasures of landscape above and below the water line and headed back to the resort. As part of our package, we got this fried banana plate delivered to our room about 30 minutes upon our arrival. Nice touch!



That evening, we ventured out to a recommended restobar called Ric Sons. It had live music that was great, though a little deafening was good selections and good performing. We got great squid for Kirst, a spicey cheesie calamari…how can you go wrong? I got the crispy fried noodle seafood which was quite good as well. This place proved to be one of the best, if not the best, place to eat that we found.




We were pooped after that, got three 1.5 Liters of water and a package of Oreo’s, hailed a trike for 50 Pesos (a little over a buck) and went back. We watched some Christmas specials from the 70’s or 80’s and passed out like babies.



Great day! I wouldn’t have it any other way!

Palawan Day 2 - The Road less traveled by water buffalo's...

So as my bride foreshadowed, we embarked on our next little known adventure to the promise lands of El Nido, "The North", for you non-espanol speakers. The van with 9 original seats (and five welded additionally that would fit our cousin Jack or Hannah very well but intended by the shuttle company for adults, but I digress...) shows up amidst the deluge at our eccentric little inn. They throw our luggage into the odd spaces throughout the van in between other random tourists and take us to places unknown but the driver and his 14 year old helper.




We arrive at a rooster infested car port area to reload luggage to the roof while ever so carefully being dropped in the mud and chucked up top to the teenager who wraps all meticulously in the remnants of a tarp and 30 meters of twine that has been tested to incur 2 lbs. of pressure before exceeding its tinsel. How proud he was of his fine job! He even earned a smoke from his approving boss and a smile!







Kirst and I were really smart...and a bit lucky to ride in front so we could see the onslaught of what was to come. With our backpacks and water bottles placed in strategic locations to lock us in, we readied ourselves for the roller coaster, I mean van ride, up to El Nido. We were surrounded by "the sniffler"...who wouldn't accept tissues from anyone and would prefer to push the phlegm back and forth as opposed to remove it from his system; the driver who at one point asked DT if he wanted to drive after shaking his head to stay awake; and the human saw mill that obviously stayed awake all last night to enjoy the serenity we experienced.

I will be posting some fun videos of the ride on FLickr, there's a link at the homepage of our blog, if you'd like to "feel" the fun we had.

We made it to our first pitstop in a time that seemed more like virtual time travel of minutes, really took three hours. We stopped at a local seaside venue that some local jewelry vendors may have seen white folk before and met us at our van door awaiting our taste in bracelets and rings to be met with our wallets. We unfortunately had packed the cash too far away and tried to explain ourselves without much dignity...well I did anyways, Kirsten was much more benevolent than I.

We then hopped back in much to our butts chagrin and got settled for more snoring, sniffling and side to side head bobbing! Not more than three minutes, we embraced the local flair of driving....dirt roads! Now this gave us the complete experience. Our driver probably believes in God, he definitely believes in efficiency, he believes in smiling all the time. However, he does not believe in evasive action of pot holes. He tried numerous times to argue with the laws of gravity and go with Newtons first law of motion...a body in motion stays that way, even when met with a diagonal slope or vertical obstacle.

We only ran over one dog, we think only one, along our way through several villages. It seemed that the brakes just wouldn't, or couldn't, work and the only mechanism other than the gas and steering wheel that worked was the horn; trust me, this is good news. We enjoyed the remainder of the rain forrest that we saw, striking views of the coast, and most importantly planting our feet on the ground free of worry or tensing in our stomachs.

All and all, we can't wait to do it again tomorrow!

Palawan, El Nido

Okay so we will put pictures up but this is where we are at this winter vacation.
Doug and I have traveled from Subic Bay to Manila by our car...that we call Lady Liberty (representing our freedom) to Manila on the 19th. We then took a flight from Manila to an Island off the west coast of the "mainland" called Palawan. Here are a few things you need to know about this island. There are not huge resorts here and if you look this place up and see there is a huge resort, that my friend is a lie. The resort would be a huts. Kind of...with rooms with fans, rooms with aircon. We opted to pay more and stay in a room with aircon. (side note we are not staying in anythign that is close to resort, like we would pay those prices. HA) Now another thing you need to know is that there is only electricity from 2 in the afternoon until 6 a.m. the next morning. So aircon only at that time, and charging stuff and what not only at that time. Enough said? Just giving you an idea. There are not many cars but something called a trike....which you get around on.

Alright so we get in like at 7 on the 19th to Puerto Princesa and we stay at this place called the Deep Garden Forest Hotel. It is funny, seriously with large statues and weird looking stuff all over. The ride there well let's just say all I could think about was where the hell is this guy taking us. Down this dark dirt road with no lights and huge pot holes. Well we made it. And checked in and then headed to this restaurant called Kinabachu (or something like that) where we had blue marlin, dark negra beer, garlic prawns, green papaya salad. It was amazing. Very cheap too. Then we went back to the hotel and crashed. Seriously crashed. The next morning we had to get up early to catch a van that would take us about 6 hours to get to El Nido far up north......little did we know.

We wake up the next morning and get ready to go. And here comes the rains. Deluge. Couldn't even see outside. And all we could think was well at least it is cooler than it has been. Our van was suppose to be there by 7ish. Let's just say it wasn't. And that it the next story we will be telling. The van ride, the snifflier, the snorer, the tiny toilets, and the road that took us to El Nido.