1. Puerto Princesa
After 3 flights, we finally made it to the island of Palawan, and the city of Puerto Princesa. We were all quite tired after our over 24 hours of traveling and no sleep. We took a nap and waited for the boys to join us at out hostel. We stayed a Dallas Hostel, and it was great. I mean great for the price. We paid under $10 a night to stay there and it was perfect for what we needed it for...sleep... While in Puerto Princesa we had our first glimpse of tricycles. These are just modified motorcycles with a side car! :)
2. El Nido
We got to the northern part of Palawan to a town called El Nido after a 6 hour van ride on a road that was sometimes paved and sometimes gravel. It was a long journey, but El Nido was worth it. We spent most of our time here while we were in the Philippines. It was not built up and touristy, but still had many things for tourists to do, so it was a perfect location for us. All five of us stayed in one room, which was tight, but we didn't spend a lot of time in our room when we had paradise right outside the window...
3. Island hoping tour (tour A)
We went on a day long island hoping tour that took us to 6-7 locations. Many of these locations were beautiful lagoons with magical blue water. We were able to snorkel and swim in these places and just enjoy the scenery. We had lunch provided and I even ate some of the tuna fish with the eye balls still on it! Emily and Sian managed to get quite sunburned and my paranoid self did not! Wahoo! We went with Spur Travel and our tour guide group was awesome! So much so that we booked a second tour with them as well!
4. Eating Seafood
I don't eat seafood in Kansas. I don't. So, when I am in locations that are actually near to the sea, I do find myself eating some seafood. I took it to a new level though this trip! By the second day, I was purposefully ordering shrimp! This has never happened before.... It was so good. Also had some great fish fillets and other interesting things. I wouldn't say that I am an overall seafood lover....but I will say that I've made great strides!
5. Massages
The massages in El Nido were very cheap. They were around 350 to 400 pesos, which equals out to about $7. This was for an hour massage! I felt a little bit like Goldilocks though... the first one was too soft, the second one was "just right", but the third one was too hard! Overall though, they were really good and a great way to end the day! A lot of the group got a "sunburn treatment" massage, where they took aloe leaves and rubbed them all over the sunburn. Poor Ben had an allergic reaction to the oil, and it made him break out everywhere! There also was a notable massage time that the Filipino masseuses figured out that Ben was part Filipino and they were oohing and ahhing over him. He probably could have gotten a wife in that moment....and I'm not even kidding.. ahah
6. Mopeds for the day...
Our moped experience was interesting to say the least. We rented mopeds for 2 different places in El Nido. After we picked them up in the morning we took them out for a ride. On this first ride the boys lost the girls and when we finally doubled back to find them, we found Emily and Sian sitting in the ditch. Emily had flown off her scooter when the highway had surprised her and turned to gravel... There is a before and after photo of her above. She had a scrape on her leg, and a fat lip, but she was pretty good considering. AND, it could have been much worse.
I had chose to ride of the back of Ben's scooter for the day, so I could take pictures. This turned out to be a good thing though, because Emily was not going to drive a moped again! I ended up driving ours back into town and Ben took Emily on her scooter. I have to admit...I really did enjoy driving it for a bit though! We dropped off Emily's scooter, cleaned her up a bit, and continue to adventure around. We found a beach next to the Orange Pearl, which is where some of our friends were staying, and stayed there for most of the day.
7. Beaches
We found some beautiful beaches in the Philippines, and some were quite secluded. The weather held up for us as well. We only had a few hours of really cloudy weather... I had a great opportunity to do my beach photo at the beach next to the Orange Pearl.
8. Sunsets
Unfortunately, for some reason or another (usually getting a massage), I didn't see enough of these sunsets, but when we went to the beach that was recommended for sunset, it didn't disappoint! It was beautiful! :)
The line that you can see in the sky is a zip-line that will be ready for use in a month or so! Wish is had been ready now! :)
9. Island Hopping (Tour B)
We were wanting to go on "Tour C" but were unable to go on the day because of the rough waters. Apparently for that tour you have to cross more open waters or something...Anyways, we found ourselves on Tour B, and too be honest, I thought it was still great! This tour not only had islands, but we walked across a sandbar on Snake Island, and we also go to go inside a weird cave. It was really neat!
10. Monkeys
I'm not used to monkeys out in the wild. I find that a crazy concept! And to be completely honest, they scare me! I've heard they like to steal your stuff and eat your food. This monkey was given a banana and I wanted to take a picture of it, so I got semi-close. If you could see the next shot on my camera, you would see the monkey coming after me! ahah! As I was running away a girl tells me, "They don't like it when you look them in the eye..." So...no eye contact ever again with me and monkeys....
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