El Nido DAY 2

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Was awakened around 3 am by the disappearance of cold breeze in my room. Still half asleep I began to wonder why our AC unit had stopped. Took me a while to realize that the night before, the inn's owner had told me that the town's power goes out around this time as the power plant could only provide electricity from 5:30 pm to 3 am. So I had to open the window to let some fresh air in and went back to sleep.

Today's itinerary included Tour A of the island hopping tour. Tomorrow's would be Tour C. There are a total of 4 different tours offered all around the town by over 30 different retailers but I went to the one that was recommended by the inn's owner. All retailers offer the exact same tours at the exact same price. I managed to get a P100 discount per person with the stipulation by the tour owner that I will not spread the word around town.

The tour was scheduled to leave town at 9:00 am so the tour owner told me to be at her shop no later than 8:45 am. It was only 7 am so I decided to grab some breakfast. Went to a small convenient store that also served food. Yesterday, I asked the inn's owner about places where the locals eat and not where tourists go. This was one of those place on his list.

This was your perfect hole in a wall kinda place. It was a tiny store that sold everything from fruits, vegetables, canned products, bottled products, toiletries, and of course food. It had 3 tiny tables that could only facilitate 4 people max. This was definitely not the kind of place foreign tourists would visit but definitely my falls right into my cup-o-tea. My timing was perfect as they had just brought out 3 piping hot items – Pork Adobo, Chicken Adobo, & Beef Steak – probably the 3 most popular dishes in the Philippines. I had the Pork Adobo with 1 fried egg, 1 bowl of bulalo soup, and of course some rice. The total price including a bottle of soda was just barely over $3 US Dollars.

Got to know the store's owner, Carmen, quite well after I praised her for wonderful cooking. She said that she came from Iloilo years ago and has a daughter who owns the pharmacy next door. Her daughter has a husband who owns a resort called Island Front Resort and Carmen highly recommend that I pay the resort a visit. Promised her that I would do so.

After breakfast, I still had time to walk along the beach and take yet more photos. Got back to the tour shop at exactly 8:45 am. 9:45 am rolls along and we had not left for the tour as we were waiting for 2 other people to show up. Finally convinced the owner to just leave without them so we did. Unfortunately, it started raining! Boy, this rain is beginning to frustrate me. So far, all the places I have visited involved rain – Ilocos, Singapore, and now here in paradise. We got on the boat and it really started to pour down like cats and dogs with poor visibility. The boat's captain insisted to keep going but I said that I want to enjoy this tour on a much better weather.

So he dropped my uncle and I back to the beach and he proceeded the tour with the remaining couple on the boat. Later in the night, I met a Canadian gal staying next door to our room at the inn and she also took the same exact tour earlier but on a different tour company and she said it rained the whole time and was freezing during the entire tour. Really glad we decided to ditch it earlier.

Hoping for better weather tomorrow!

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Comments

[ATA Travel Agency , Egypt]

Nice story
I'm glad I chose to read this one... Nice story