El Nido DAY 1

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I arrived in Manila from Singapore at 5:00 am and turned around to check into my 8:00 am flight to Puerto Princesa, Palawan. This entire day will be devoted to travel as I make my way to my final destination of El Nido, Palawan. My Uncle Cid will be traveling with me as my bodyguard :)

Made it to PP around 9:30 am but by the time we collected our baggage from the belt, it was already 10:00 am when we left the local airport. We then took a trike where its driver took us to a shuttle van that makes daily trips to El Nido. Our other less preferrable option was to take a regional bus that had no AC (a must have in this humid hot weather) and made multiple stops along the way to pick up passengers that ranged from people to agricultural animals such as goats, chickens, & pigs! Although the adventure sounds inviting, we didn't want to take 8-10 hours to get to our destination. While the shuttle van took less time (6 hours) and had AC which made the ride much more enjoyable especially in sections were the road was not paved. The van, carrying 10 passengers, left town at 11;00 am and we made it to El Nido at 5 pm.

From the van's terminal (which was a mere dirt vacant lot with a shed that served as its check-in/check-out counter), we took a 2 minute walk to our hotel - The Inngo Tourist Inn. We were greeted by its owner, Inngo, who gave me a 40% discount from his original quote. So the room only cost me P800/night which is the equivalent of just a little over $20/night. The establishment was not located on the beach but the beach was literally less than 30 paces away. The hotel directly across is a beachfront property and their cheapest room was P3500/night, No thanks! Besides, the beach is only about 30 paces from my hotel room door.

After settling our things into our room, we walked along the beach, took some photos, and went to find a place to grab dinner. Along the streets of El Nido were several make-shift food stands that served items like barbeque pork on a stick, squid on a stick, etc, all grilled over hot charcoals. We grabbed a few here and there. By the time we snacked around, we found ourselves full for a mere $3 total for the both of us. So we just headed back to the hotel to crash as we are so exhausted from our trip.

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