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!