El Nido is located in Bacuit Bay and it's a 5-6 hours drive from Puerto Princesa, Palawan.
DAY 3: DEC 21, 2014
Our van arrived at our hotel by 7:30am together with other passengers mostly foreigners and we arrived at our hotel at exactly 2:00pm. And we waited for our room to be ready. We stayed at El Nido Beach Hotel and we got our room for 3000php/night and it's already a family room.
After putting our things to our room we went out and looked for something to eat. We ended up looking for a restaurant that serves Chao Long, luckily we we're able to find one it's the same price with Bona's but still nothing beats Bona's Chao Long. We went home after, we rested for a few minutes and we decided to go out. We walked around El Nido's town proper.
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We even visited El Nido's church which is Saint Francis of Assisi Parish. We stayed for a bit to pray and to look around the church.
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We then looked for a place to eat. There's a lot of "paluto" restaurants you can choose from, cheaper but guaranteed that all seafoods served are fresh.
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DAY 4: DECEMBER 22, 2014
Woke up early for our breakfast buffet. (Oh btw, our hotel accomodation also includes buffet breakfast.) And just so you know, there's no bacon nor any pork or beef or meat. They only serves vegetables, seafoods, chicken and fruits, and according to the owner its because they're too far from the city. There's even no banks or ATM machines at El Nido so you need to make sure that you have enough cash with you.
But the good thing about their buffet breakfast is that there's pancakes!!!
Right after breakfast we start preparing for our Island Tour. Will go with TOUR A for that day, Mostly all package tours includes 5 destinations and lunch is already included. We got our TOUR A for 1000php/head.
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And so the TOUR started:
Small Lagoon
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You can enter the lagoon by swimming through or as what we did, kayaking through a small partition in the rocks. What greets you on the other side is clear turquoise-colored waters lined by limestone cliffs.
Shimizu Island
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Shimizu island seems to be all the tours’ lunch stop. So we stayed here a bit longer since our tour guide is still preparing our lunch. They'll be the one to cook it for you and they will do a simple presentation for the food they prepared. What I noticed is that they plated the the dishes pretty well and it really looks delicious.
Secret Lagoon
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It was called a Secret Lagoon since you need to enter a small opening for you to see the lagoon just be careful so you won't bump your head. We didn't stayed that long here since others are also waiting for their turn to go inside. The temperature inside was much cooler because it is constantly in the shadows of the limestone cliffs enclosing it.
We moved to the other side of the Secret Lagoon where you can swim and snorkeling as well.
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Big Lagoon
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You'll be toured around the Big Lagoon. We didn't get off our boat as they said it's not yet safe to go down so we just enjoyed the view.
7 Commando
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Seven Commandos Island was named after the 7 commandos who lived in the island, their names printed on the rocks at the island. We stayed here longer since this will be the last part of Tour A. We we're given the chance to have a short nap. We even ordered halo halo and they also have different fruit shakes and it was all for 100php. There's even a mini volleyball court on the island.
At exactly 4:00pm we left the island and went back to our hotel. It was really a tiring but fun day so we took a hot shower and rested a bit before heading out for dinner.
We went out and passed by a pizza place, it was intriguing since there is a long line outside. Usually foreigners waiting for their turn. So we decided to try fall in line. You might want to have your order taken so it'll be served immediately once you got your place to sit.
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Btw, the pizza place is called Trattoria Altrov'e. After an hour we we're able to get inside. The pizza cost 300-400php, it's big and already good for sharing. And I can say that it was worth the wait. ;)
DAY 5: DECEMBER 23, 2014
Woke up early again for the breakfast buffet and prepared for our Tour B.
Snake Island
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It was called Snake Island because of its long sand bar that looks like a snake from a far. The sand bar is clearly visible only when its low tide. Too bad it's kind of raining when we went there so the sand bar was covered with water but we still walked on it going to the other end which is another island.
Cudugnon Cave
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Cudugnon Cave is a Visaya word that means "chill", the cave was called Cudugnon because when you go inside you'll feel cold or a bit chill as what our tour guide told us. We had to lie down to get thru the small opening of the cave, inside the cave we found fruit bats, different rock formations. I believe that this is tour B's stop over place for lunch, it was the same dish as what was served yesterday but different presentation since we have a different tour guide today but still it's so good.
Cathedral Cave
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As you can see the name was given after the shape of the cave. Again, we're not allowed to go down or explore the inside of the cave since there's a lot of bats inside. Our boat just stopped in front of the cave opening for us to take photos of it and on it. Lol then we moved to our next destination.
Pinagbuyutan Island
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Not really sure why it's called Pinagbuyutan Island. We walked around the island, I even went up a coconut tree. You can just stare and enjoy the stretch of white-sand beach and those immense cliffs. It was really beautiful. There are also different corals/rocks scattered around that you can play with while you're on the island.
Papaya Beach
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Last stop for the day was Papaya Beach, it was named Papaya Beach because there were a lot of papaya trees before. Just on the other side of the beach was 7 Commando which was part of our Tour yesterday.
There was also a store here that sells papaya shakes/juice and buko juice. Not a fan of papaya so we ordered buko instead. There's also a basketball court here which visitors can use. But we played beach volleyball instead while others played basketball.
We again head back to our hotel after. It was again a very tiring day but I had a lot of fun, I was able to have new friends as well.
We took a nap and again went out for dinner. It was kind of late so we ended up eating at a sizzling plate restaurant, nothing special.
DAY 6: DECEMBER 24, 2014
We we're supposed to go on Tour C but we were advised that it's not really safe because it's raining and mostly the tour includes snorkeling to 5 different islands and we'll not be able to enjoy it since the waves are really strong because it was raining.
So we decided to go back to Puerto Princesa and just spent Christmas Eve there. Again, it was a 5 hours travel time. And we stayed at the same hotel and went again went to Bona's for lunch.
We rented a van that would take us to Baywalk for the Firefly show. The van picked us up at around 5:30pm. It took us to Baywalk and there we waited for us to ride the boat where in we'll have our dinner buffet before it will transfer us to a small boat for the Firefly show.
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Taking pictures with flash was prohibited during the Firefly show to avoid on scaring the Fireflies. While riding a boat you'll be toured around a mangrove farm. This is something new to me, I haven't seen a lot of fireflies like that. This is a must try when you visit PP.
We went back to our hotel, went on a quick swim then went to sleep.
That's how we celebrate our Christmas Eve. Lol
DAY 7: DECEMBER 25, 2014
A lot of restaurants was closed this day probably because it's Christmas. We ended up eating at Jollibee. Lol
By 12:00pm we already checked out but they allowed us to leave our things so we can have lunch first before heading to the airport for our flight back to Manila.
We went to Robinsons Place Palawan and a little additional pasalubong shopping before heading back to the hotel to get our things and to the airport.
It was definitely a unforgettable experience being able to explore Palawan for free. Lol
I would definitely come back for Coron!
I hope this will be helpful if you're planning to visit Palawan. If you hava any questions, feel free to comment. Thank you for reading! ;)
Here's the 1st part of my Palawan Adventure: https://ieatandiwander.wordpress.com/2014/12/28/palawan-2014/
