El Nido, Day 1 (The Philippines, Part 4)

After spending on night in Manila at the Lions Den Hostel, we woke up super early to go to the airport and catch our 7:00am plane. Because we booked a flight to Palawan so last minute, everything was full and we were forced to book a private airline called ITI that flies straight to El Nido. It was more expensive, but kind of worked out nicely because we didn't have to go to Puerta Princesa and then take a 6 hour bus to El Nido.

Because it was an expensive, private airline, everything was super fancy. There was minimum security to go through, they gave us wooden boarding passes, and we got to sit in a really nice waiting area with a free buffet of fruit, sandwiches, soup and drinks while we waited. We even had our own table with name cards on it and the WiFi password waiting on a little slip of paper.

When we were ready to depart, they shuttled all the passengers to the plane and we had a red carpet entrance! The flight was only an hour and then we got a red carpet exit as well! Andrew and I were the first off the plane since we sat in the back, so it was pretty neat. Here they had another waiting area with a free buffet as we waited to get a trike to take us into the city and they even had a group of live and in costume Philippine singers to entertain the guests while we ate and waited.

Though small and remote, El Nido is now primarily a tourist destination. It's located on the north end of the island of Palawan, which is the 5th biggest island in the Philippines. In actuality, the municipality(smaller division of a province) is El Nido, and the main town is called Buena Suerte. We stayed at a hostel, called Novie's Tourist Hotel, a short trike ride south in the town called Corong-Corong. Things were cheaper there and less crowded with tourists.

The first thing we did when we arrived (since we couldn't check into our hostel yet) was see the beach and explore the city. El Nido is famous for its towering, limestone-cliff islands. There are 45 islands and islets in El Nido, that were formed due to its location on the tectonically and seismically active Sunda Plate.

For a quick snack before finding lunch and our hostel, we got a cup of Halo-Halo. In Tagalog (the native language), it means Mix-Mix. It's a wide array of fruit and sweets topped by shaved, frozen milk. The 'mix' name comes because you're suppose to mix it up before you eat it.

Like all places in the Philippines, El Nido is home to many beautiful churches. One of which was the Church of St. Francis of Assissi (which was cool, since I've seen the original church of that name in Italy). The clean white exterior with dark red trim was a beautiful contrast standing in front of the jagged limestone cliffs.

From here we took a trike to and dropped our bags at the hostel. There were still a couple hours until we were allowed to check in, so we went to Corong-Corong's beach and walked in the sand for a while.

The tide was still coming in at the time, and there were still lots of boats tied up in the sand.

The water was warm, but refreshing, just as the day was getting hot. We took the opportunity to take the first of many selfies on Andrew's GoPro with the beautiful scenery.

Even though it was something we didn't want to think about yet, we decided to go to the bus station to get information on prices and times of departures so we would know when we had to be ready to leave the next day to take the 6 hour bus to Puerta Princessa and catch our flight back to Manila from the airport there.

Along the way, we walked past another one of El Nido's gorgeous churches: Iglesia Ni Cristo. Sunday mass was just letting out at the time, and the place was swarming with cars and trikes heading home.

The public jeepney that was going by at the time was suddenly packed with more people than I thought it could possibly carry. As we walked, it would keep passing us and then stopping to pick up more people and we would pass it again. A few stops after this picture, we saw them loading a 8'x4' piece of plywood on top of it to bring to someone's destination. Everyone sitting on top had to get off so they could put it there and then climb back on top of it.

Eventually we settled down for lunch at a beach front restaurant. It was nice to sit in the cool shade after so many hours of sitting in the sun. All I wanted more than anything at this point was a long shower and to wash my hair, but the hostel (like most in the area) didn't have running water, so I had to make do with a bucket bath later than night.

For lunch we got chicken curry and chicken with noodles, served with white rice and watermelon. It was delicious and it felt like paradise accompanied by our view.

After we were finally able to check in to our hostel, we dropped our bags and took a short nap to re-energize. Then we rented a 2 person kayak and paddled further south along the coast to a beach we were told about called Las Cabanas.

It took us a while to get in a rhythm with the paddles on the double kayak, but we weren't in any kind of rush, so we meandered slowly to our destination.

Las Cabanas is a beach on a corner of the island with very shallow water. Many people choose to just lay in the water while the bask in the sun rather than sitting in the sand.

The water is clearer than imaginable, and the islands in the distance look like mountains rising out of the water.

After exploring the beach for a while and walking through the water to the island next to it, we laid in the water, too. We stayed here and chatted, laughed and enjoyed the view for several hours.

As soon as the light dimmed and started to tint the landscape, many tourists came out to watch the sunset. Apparently many others also got the recommendation that Las Cabanas is the best place in El Nido to view it.

Once the sun fell behind the horizon, we hopped back in the kayak to race back to our beach before it was completely dark. We were in a much better and faster rhythm almost immediately this time, but we were distracted by how beautiful the dusk colors were and how the sparkled, reflecting off the water. When the moon came out and grew brighter, it made the whole scene incredible. 

We didn't succeed in returning before it was completely dark and it was extremely difficult to navigate because it was low tide and we kept running aground when we couldn't see. Eventually, we gave up and dragged the kayak to shore. We thought we were close to the hostel anyways, so we (Andrew did all the work) decided to drag it along the beach back. It ended up being so much farther than we expected, but thankfully some local tour guides saw us and offered to help us carry it back. In my experience, everyone in the Philippines is incredible nice and generous!

After cleaning up at the hostel a bit, we went back to the beach for some beers and dinner by torch light under the stars. We even got to try some of the 'famous' Philippine rum. That night we slept well, in a room that actually had A.C. and comfy beds.