Feb. 20-24, 2013 - El Nido, Philippines

Feb. 20-24, 2013 - El Nido, Philippines

From Puerto Princesa we traveled up to El Nido in the North of Palawan.  Here we spent 4 days being beach bums.  2 of the days we embarked on full day island hopping tours with lunch and guides.

The first tour "Tour A" was the lagoon tour.  We visited what they called the big lagoon, small lagoon, and the secret lagoon.  Each different and each beautiful.  At the small lagoon the boat dropped us off and we swam further into the lagoon.  It was beautiful.  cliffs on all sides, crystal clear water, and best of all we arrived with very few people there.  The secret lagoon was indeed a secret we had to fit through a small opening in the rocks to see it.  The big lagoon was just that, big.  We took the boat all through it and docked at a floating dock were we could jump off into the water and swim.

The second tour "Tour B"  was the cave tour.  We got to see several caves that had been carved into the rock.  The first one we had to wiggle in through a very small hole in the rock.  On the other side it opened up to a beautiful little cave with a little bit of climbing for the brave.  I only made it half way up.  Me and heights aren't real good friends.  We also visited snake island which had just a very thin sliver of beach connecting to larger land areas.  Check out the pics! I also go toasted by the sun.  So much so that I wore a shirt most of the day on the 2nd tour.  And yes I wore plenty of sunscreen.  Each day on the tour the boat guys would set up a BBQ and grill fish and slice fresh veggies for lunch.  It as delicious!

We spent one day just lounging in town.  I should mention that the electricity was only on from 2pm to 6am for the entire city.  A few places generated their own power and we visited one such cafe to use the internet.  We took our shoes off at the front door as we have at most places in Asia.  We have done this several times throughout our trip in Asia.  We have gotten used to it.  However, on this particular day, some stole my flip flops.  Yeah, the flip flops I mentioned a few posts back that were ugly and manly but were like walking on clouds compared to my wore our Tevas.  I really enjoyed those shoes for about 2 weeks.  We searched for a while, looked behind the door, checked at our table.  No shoes.  So in my bare feet I ventured over to the souvenir shop next door and bought some new flip flops.  I will say the new ones are much cuter than the old.  I guess it was just Gods way of improving my travel fashion.  The lady at the check out counter asked if I needed a bag.  I just laughed, said no thanks, and wore my brand new shoes home.