El Nido ~ Philippines
We woke up after a good sleep in some kind of private room in Puerto Princesa and took a tricycle to the busterminal where you can either get a shuttle van or the bus to Port Barton which was our next stop on Palawan island. When we arrived to the terminal (which was just as much a terminal as my bedroom) we got told that the last bus to Port Barton left just ten minutes ago and that we had wait for a van for an hour.
As restless as I am I went for a walk around the terminal and saw all these busses to El Nido. I started asking around for departure time and prices and walked back to my poor giving-up-on-life friend (the one above) and told her we're skipping Port Barton for this time and are going directly to El Nido, the tourist paradise.
The van ride was about 5 hours and we paid 10 USD which was over price (like they always trick us into doing) and when we arrived the spontaneity left us without a place to stay over the night. We walked around for 30 minutes to different hostels but they were all full or like 5 times our normal budget. But then we reached Bamboo Billabong a very basic and cheap hostel but also the love of my life. There we met a famous filipino and I talked us into sharing a single bed for one night in the famous guys private room. Good job, I know.
Well, since I'm getting some kind of allergic reaction to these kind of plentiful tourism cities we decided on staying in El Nido for only two days to do some famous island hopping and beach chilling. Remember this, two days..
Popular things to do in El Nido, go to the beach called Las Cabañas, go to Nacpan beach, do island hopping and dance in Pukka bar untli sunrise. You have to do it all, right?
So our first day we bought watermelon and bananas and went to Las Cabañas to read our books and just enjoy the view. This beach is just located a 15 minute tricycle ride from town and is 2 USD and really, I was really enjoying this beach. It was far away from crowded, had a few beach bars and just an amazing scenery with the mountains surronding the clear (!!!) blue water.
When we came back to the hostel we just wanted to have dinner and go to bed. But hey, weren't they all drinking beer? Let's go to Pukka bar.