The Philippines - Part 2

We had an amazing week at Verde Safari. The seclusion of the resort and the friendly warmth of the owners and staff made for an extremely relaxing week. Aside from the tourists who would ride in from town for the “lunch rush,” we really had the entire stretch of beach to ourselves for most of the week. However, we couldn’t have traveled all the way to Palawan without spending at least a few nights in the more touristy part of the island. So after our week at Verde Safari, we said goodbye to the local teenagers who worked there, packed our bags, and made the 45 minute trek back into town.

 El Nido

For starters, the social studies teacher in me needs to clear up the municipal breakdown of the island. El Nido is actually more like what we would call a county in the US, not an individual city or town. We were technically in El Nido all along. However, the “county” breaks down into smaller districts called barangays (bar-in-guys). Verde Safari is located in Barangay Bucana while the main town and “county seat” (as we would call it in the US – not sure what they call it) is Barangay Buena Suerte. Although we had/have been referring to “town” as El Nido, it is more accurate to call it Buena Suerte. I think this is a pretty common misconception and we still think of the town as El Nido, so that’s what I’m going to continue referring to it as. Sorry to get technical, but it would have bothered me to not explain it.

Although it’s still quite small, the town of El Nido is very busy compared to where we had spent the majority of the trip at that point. There are tons of local shops, restaurants, and bars and the narrow streets were crowded with pedestrians, tricycle cabs, and full sized vehicles. All the island hopping tours and other excursions were also chartered out of El Nido. To make it easy on the tourists, the local government actually sets the price and the routes of all the tours. So no matter which shop you book out of, all the tours are exactly the same and cost the same amount. This eliminated the hassle of having to shop for the best deal or worry about getting price gouged. There were about five excursions to pick from and we had already traveled to town once during our stay at Verde Safari to do one of the island hopping tours. The prices were so reasonable, though, that we definitely wanted to do another. The trips lasted the entire day and included a delicious lunch which the guides cooked up for us on the beach. Each tour included 3-4 short stops, plus two longer stops at lunch and the end of the trip.

 We also went on a private dinner cruise one evening. A “private dinner cruise” sounds so extravagant and something we would have never imagined doing. Although it was the most expensive thing we did on the trip, it was really about the price of just going to a nice dinner at a semi-fancy restaurant in the US. The guides took us out on a boat similar to the ones for the island hopping tour, but this time we had it to ourselves. They drove us to another secluded beach, set up a table, and cooked us a really delicious four course dinner. It was a ton of food that I can’t imagine any two people being able to eat on their own.

We only spent three nights in town, but with the island hopping, dinner cruise, and a full day just checking out local shops and restaurants, we were satisfied with our stay and prepared to head back to Puerto Princesa for the last leg of our trip.

This was the hotel we stayed at in town and the view from right outside our door. The hotel was literally right on the beach.

The busy streets of El Nido offered lots of little shops, restaurants and bars. My favorite restaurant was this place called Blue Azul. They had really good falafels and hummus. I'm still not exactly sure what falafels are, but they were amazing! When I asked about the portion sizes, the worker responded with..."well, it's a lot of food. But your're a big guy. You can eat it all."

Another great beach right near downtown. You can tell its closer to town because of all the boat traffic. There definitely wasn't that at Verde Safari.

There were several cool bars and restaurants right on the beach. One bar had a live band that play a lot of reggae and Bob Marley covers. They were really good!

 

 

 

More of the island hopping tours. The three pictures above are from one of the several "secret lagoons" they took us to. They were fully enclosed little beaches and the only way to access them were the little crawl spaces like the one in the bottom picture.You could walk up to this particular one, but there was another that you had to swim into. The guides said it was only accessable at low tide because at high tide the opening gets flooded. Obviously it wasn't safe to carry the camera into that one.

 

The second island hopping tour we did included a kayaking trip. Some of the places we kayaked to had the best scenery of anywhere. Those were other times that it wasn't safe to take the camera also. We also did tons of snorkeling at a lot of the stops on the tours.

Our tour guides making us lunch. They made some of the best grilled chicken and grilled fish I've ever had! The fresh fruit (especially the mango) was delicious also!

Our private dinner cruise. The food on this trip was amazing also! One of the great things about the Philippines was how it hasn't been taken over by over-priced big businesses from the west. The price of the trip was similar to just getting dinner and drinks at a medium priced restaurant in the US.

That pretty much sums up our time in El Nido. One more post will be coming soon about our few days in Puerto Princesa.

Thanks for reading,

Hunter

 

The Philippines - Part 1

At the beginning of the school year, many of the teachers were already making plans for the Chinese New Year break. Hunter and I were very excited as we dreamed of all the places we could go. South Korea? Japan? Thailand? The sky was the limit. One day we happened to overhear our director talking about a little place in the Philippines called El Nido. He explained that it was his go to place and he had been several times. He described it as the most picturesque place you can imagine. And cheap to boot. After a little research and a few minutes drooling over pictures, we were hooked. It looked amazing AND we could stay for a lot longer due to how cheap everything would be.

I never imagined us going to the Philippines but after spending almost two weeks there, we were certainty not let down. It is an understatement to say the Philippines are beautiful. I can’t describe the gorgeousness that was everywhere and the pictures just don’t do it justice. A majority of the country, or all of it rather, seems untouched by Western commercialism. Everything is raw and in a natural state. The people were down to Earth, kind, sweet, and helpful. The ocean and the beaches were magnificent and breathtaking. I felt like I was constantly looking at a postcard. 

We experienced too much in our 13 nights to detail in just one blog, so we will break our trip into three separate posts which will describe the three places we spent the majority of our time.

Verde Safari

We spent about half of our trip at an isolated little “resort” called Verde Safari. To get there we flew from Shanghai to the capital of the Philippines, Manila. We then flew a short distance to the island of Palawan to a quaint city called Puerto Princesa. We arrived in the evening and had a long day ahead of us so we ate dinner and went to sleep. The next morning we woke up early and rode for 5 hours in a hot, sticky, cramped van along a bumpy dirt road all the way to El Nido. Once we arrived, the owner of Verde Safari, Anne, picked us up and took us for another bumpy ride. This trip was much shorter, lasting only one hour. 

Verde Safari is very far North on the island of Palawan. It is tucked away in the forest, surrounded by a village on a little cove. It is owned by a couple who were very kind and low key.  There are only a few bedrooms with personal bathrooms for rent (or you could camp on the beach) so there were often not many people there. There were quite a few days where we had the place to ourselves and it felt as though we had our own private beach front. 

Verde Safari provided peace and quiet and was very secluded, which was a nice alternative to the more touristy El Nido. 

This is what our place looked like. It was cute and simple! It was behind the owners house and less than 100 yards away from the beach. They filtered the water so we were able to drink it, however they did not have a water heater. That made for very cold showers!

The beach offered crystal clear waters and bright, white sand. We often sat in the hammocks right in front of the beach. We spent a lot of time playing poker, bad mitten, and eating. We swam a lot and explored the area too.

There were some cool lava rocks that we liked to climb. They were down the beach from us and if you continued to climb them around a cliff, there was another pretty cove where you could swim.


Our first full day at Verde Safari, we went for a boat ride with a local fisherman. He took us to an island right across from our beach where we went snorkeling and  hiking. We climbed to the top of the island where we had a great view of everything surrounding us. The fisherman also took us to a beautiful cove that was north of us. It was surrounded by rock so there were no waves. The water was crystal clear and so beautiful!

One day we went hiking and explored the village nearby. We saw a lot of huts, beautiful hills, rice fields, and said hi to the locals. The little kids were so adorable and were always so excited to see us and talk to us. Despite the rampant poverty, many of the people we came across were some of the kindest and happiest I have ever met.

One day we went on an island hopping tour in El Nido. El Nido is really unique little town where most of there revenue comes from tourism so they cater to Westerners. However, they also incorporate a lot of their own local culture and food. It was my favorite place out of the three we stayed.

Anyway, thanks for reading guys. Hunter will continue blogging about our time in El Nido and Puerto Princesa. Love and miss you all.

Chelsea