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!