Lazing on a Sunny Afternoon in the Summertime

18.01.09 - El Nido is to me what the Philippines is known for. Beautiful beaches, great seafood, as yet unruined by high rise developments.

We only spent two and a half days in El Nido, though I wish it had been longer. During that time we discovered that most of the accommodation was pretty pricey and bad value. We stayed somewhere that was not pricey but still represented bad value, in my opinion, just outside of town. Our first evening was spent eating seafood right on the beach, surrounded by torches, sipping coconut juice straight from the coconut. It felt like paradise (even though in my very biased opinion coconut tastes like shite!)

The next day we hopped on a wonderful banca for the Island Church tour. This took us out to an incredibly remote beach where we stopped for lunch. There was just one other couple on our boat, and we sat together eating freshly cooked seafood and fresh fruit. Then we took a snorkel, and the sealife was incredibly varied. We even saw a turtle sat right at the bottom of the sea near shore. Elliott of course couldn't see it and he had to get so close to see that it swam off sharpish, but it was still an amazing experience. Filipino waters seem really rich in aquatic life, although there is as usual environmental evidence to the contrary.

We weren't able to make all our stops that day because of poor weather. On our way back, the afternoon clouded over and the wind whipped up. This made travelling in our fragile banca feel pretty precarious, and Elliott and I were planning our escape route at all points as bancas do now and then sink. Obviously I'm writing this blog, there was in fact no major problem and when we neared El Nido the sea calmed down and became perfectly still once more.

The next day we did another trip on the banca, this time paying a bit more to do it just as a couple. I would recommend this as it was great. However the tour itself was more touristy as the stops were all closer to El Nido; the day before we'd had all the beaches to ourselves. We stopped to do some snorkelling near a posh looking resort and again saw a lot of sealife (although nothing matched the turtle!). We then headed to Snake Island, a thin stretch of sand that is almost entirely covered by water. We had lunch there and they cooked an entire squid and entire fish for just the two of us, so we were better fed and watered than the previous day! The cave stops weren't particularly impressive. One was supposed to look like a cathedral, which I suppose it did vaguely but you couldn't stop or go inside and I never find fly by visits that inspiring. Another cave we did go in and it was nice enough... for a cave. I regret now doing the cave tour over the lagoon tour and if I'd had a third day that's what I would have done.

Sadly, we had to leave El Nido the next day to get a flight from Puerto Princesa to Cebu, where we planned to see Sinulog festival.

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