Snorkeling, Christmas Eve and Lady Gaga.

Yes my butt was sore, and to tell you the truth I think it still is but it did not stop us from doing another snorkeling tour. We chose Tour B....there are only four tours, A,B, C,D....I can't remember if that was previously explained. The whole town of El Nido have all the same tours. We had done tour A and now thought, well I thought, tour B would be good because it showed caves. So at nine in the morning Doug and I climbed into the boat and took off...hit some coral and ruined the propellor. Yup five minutes in and we had to switch boats so that took forever.

Then we head off to the area where we were going to our first snorkel. And found out one of the masks leaks and a snorkel doesn't work! This was after we traded it in once. So five minutes of being there...which took an 45minutes to get too we head back to the hotel and get two new masks.

After that we head to Snake Island, to have lunch no doubt. I decide I am going to snorkel, yup neither of the masks work and the other snorkel some how sucks.

Doug and I just look at each other...it seems typical.

Okay don't get me wrong, these are just moments when Doug and I look at each other and say we can do this, we can enjoy what we want to enjoy and just swim and laugh and take our time. So that is what we did.

We headed to a couple of caves and walked around, and were amazed at water can do. We laughed at the dogs living on the islands, enjoyed out time on the secluded beaches and were just thrilled that we have each other.

And on top of that it was Christmas Eve so there had to be something to look forward too...oh yes we got roped into doing a gift exchange at our hotel and having dinner with them....

So this is how it went, we get back to the hotel and decide yes we will stay for the dinner....who knows it could be fun and there was a gift exchange that we said we would part take in, we had bought gifts for people who we had no clue who they were. (secret santa)

To start we showered. The shower well I had hot water and then Doug didn't so we used an empty hotel room. Then dressed to go to the room next door which was where the construction had been happening all this week. And there was a gigantic roasted pig called lechon, we had it before, then the intestines that were boiled in the pigs blood. So we ate. Then around 9 or so we said we will go to our room and watch Christmas movies that we had downloaded and then come back for the gifts.

Now comes Lady Gaga, did you know she made a Christmas CD? Nope we didn't either...she tries not to be a sell out but anyone who makes a Christmas CD is a sell out. Sorry Lady Gaga. Another thing I do not think people realize is that turning the bass up real loud does nto make the music better. Another realization is that when the Filipinos find something they like they play it over and over again and again. As it played it did not get any better, trust me. That played until 1 in the morning. Presents you ask? Well they didn't "find" ours until we checked out. All I can say it was a Palmer adventure.

Not good, not bad, just extremely different. Doug and I know we can make it through anything and appreciate each other a little more when we do!

Anything worth having is worth hurting...

This morning we woke up and decided to pass on the hotel breakfast, spread the love, and eat some place new. We found the Art Cafe in the downtown area. It was a very modern compilation of conveniences and el nido charm. The food was fair, not good not great, and the coffee was the same. The nice part was the view and clean space within.

We took our time and enjoyed a couple of cups of coffee. Then decided to hit the town and see what trouble we could find. We found it. There was a spot that rented motorbikes. There was a french guy who had, as Kirst put it, suffered one too many motorbike accidents; but he was friendly enough.

He gave us a 250 CC dirt bike that was only lacking a rear seat for the bride...apparently that was not in the rental agreement? We had a large backpack, ready for anything. We went back to the hotel quickly and dumped a lot of extra weight. Strapped on the chin straps of helmets, and boogied our way to the north.




We had a map of where we planned to go. He said it could take around four hours to go around a 100 Km loop back to town. What we soon discovered was that 90 of the 100 km, was bumpy cratered dirt roads. On the one hand, we were happy he gave us the bigger bike. On the other, this one had not back seat for Kirst, ouch. I tried to smooth the road with tender driving skills eluding every bad bump, but it was impossible. Kirst may never fully recover from the bolts and plastic that were under her that day!

We were driving nearly 2 hours before we got a quarter of the way around the loop. We arrived at a beach that he said was worth stopping if we had the time and wanted to see "another" beach. We did. With some help from some local kids,



we found the right path off the road. We arrived at just another beach.

Upon arrival, we noticed that there were a few locals in hammocks that were at the forrest's edge. There were two other motorbikes there that were commuting two other couples that probably got the same memo we had. Luckily, they were on their way out. The beach was easily 1.5 miles end to end of a crescent shape that had various angles of waves making their way to wet sand.






The sand itself was like stepping on 500 count sheets, we laid in it just to make sure! Then the waves were calling, "Hey, if you don't come body surf, we're outta here!"

We couldn't just watch them leave, we embraced and rode the swells that inevitably led to chaffage on me that i would rather not discuss....hey my parents may be reading this! PG.

Nevertheless, the waves were absolutely fun, nothing less. We surfed for at least an hour despite some passing showers and the natives watching us like we were five cans short of a six pack.




It truly was a blast.

Reality set in when we saw what time it was, 3 pm and we knew it took two hours to get there, and it gets dark between 5 and 6, depending on the day, as the locals would say. "Dark" apparently means "when do you start drinking?" in el nido. Kirst was again a trooper and just told me to forget avoiding the bumps, go fast and cease the long torture. We made it out in an hour. She walked for about a half a mile on the pavement just to start realigning her vertebrae. I thought she ought to carry the backpack to help with recompression but she didn't think so?

We made it back to our hotel, showered, rode back to the rental place and paid. I had dropped her off at the restaurant to get us seats and order two cold ones; one for treating her back from the outside, and one to treat her back from the inside! That seemed to work pretty well.

All in all, another great adventure that left some lasting impressions on us!

Bath Tub

We have now taken a bus ride, snorkeled and have decided to rent a kayak to move easily around a few of the islands off the coast of where we are staying. The hotel says they rent them for full day, half day and three hours. So for ten bucks we rent a kayak for a half a day. Yup just half a day. We spent the morning getting up late, drinking really bad coffee, and staring at the ocean. It was beautiful and sunny out, the first time we have really had to put on sunblock since the other days were rainy and cloud covered. So around ten we packed up everything in plastic bags and headed out to pick up our kayak that the hotel said they would have ready for us.

This is what we saw.


We were so excited. We realized that we wouldn't get that wet and well more importantly most of our stuff would stay dry!!!!! Now it looks bigger in the picture. Seriously. Up close it got smaller but Doug and I looked at each other and said well we can do this and it has got to be easy to move around. So we threw our stuff in, climbed in, grabbed the paddles and try to go. Now the paddles were made of the heaviest wood they could find and the blade was the size of my hand. It was as though someone went out found a sapling and then tied a cement block to the end of it and said okay...GO! And go we did, well we tried because little did we know that the "boat" was actually claw foot bathtub that someone thought well...it holds water..I wonder if it would float. Well it did float but two minutes in it felt like we have never used our muscles before. We fought the tide, the wind and cross current to get around an island. And laughed most of the way on how we were fooled into thinking this would have been better than a kayak!

The view was beautiful and the sun was shining brightly and all in all it was great. We made it around the big island that we thought it would take us ten minutes to get to and got out and explored a beach that looked highly untouched, except for the guy that was walking along the beach with a machete in one had and a knife in another. Doug and I looked at each other and said...nice knowing you....the guy came upon us and said good morning and kept going....he was just looking for seafood we think.
Doug and I found the remnants of this guy!

Then off I went snorkeling while Doug succeeded in pushing the bath tub around the ocean chasing me as I looked at huge blue star fish, rainbow colored fish and all those weird creatures that live in the coral.
We did discover how to make the boat go faster.....yes it was amazing and now it was not paddle harder but....Doug paddled his little heart out while I was behind the boat "pushing" kicking with all my might with my fins on. When I got tired I would climb in the tub and take a break. We made it back to the hotel with just minutes to spare for our half a day. We ended up with just splashes of sun burn where we missed sunblock. All in all we had a great day and spent a good chunk of it laughing about the tub and it's cement paddles. Always an adventure with the two of us.