Boat trip in El Nido

Following my Island trip I stayed one night in Coron which is very busy with many restaurants, bars and shops. There isn’t a beach near the town centre so you need to travel a bit to have a swim and beaches. The place tried to quick to accommodate the numbers of tourists which resulted in badly designed and build buildings. In Coron I took a small Bangka to El Nido, the boat trip took 7 hours but it was fun and the rest of the tourists or locals on the boat chatted to each other to kill the time. The views were beautiful as sometimes we passed a little paradise beach or Island and even spotted one dolphin.

El Nido is lovely, it’s a village with one main road along the beach which hosts most of the guesthouses and restaurants. This area is famous for its black limestone so the views are big black limestone Islands or rock formations in the sea. It has a bit of a hippi-esque feeling and most of the locals were born on the island and made tourism as their profession. In the evening this place has a relaxed atmosphere were no loud music is aloud and you can have your dinner with your feet in the sand on the beach. You could easily stay here for a week and not get bored as there are many boat trips, hiking options, lovely beaches, climbing facilities and the restaurants to fill your tummy.

I only had 3 days here so I explored the area on a mountain bike -which I regretted when cycling in 35degrees- to Las Cabanas beach. Climbed the big limestone rock in the morning with guide Lance and was rewarded after 45 minutes with amazing views of El Nido.

El Nido view

The rest of the day I spend exploring many Islands on a speedboat as most trips are with a Bangka which is a lot slower but can’t reach all islands. This trip is a bit more expensive but worth the fun which I enjoyed with two French guys called Pierre and Laurent and captain Nonong. We started with Cadlao Lagoon, Cadlao long beach and Helicopter Island, followed by the stunning deserted beach of Martinloc, Binanqculan and had lunch at Tapiutan. Lunch was bbq chicken and barracuda with rice, salad and adobago sauce. Captain Nonong is also a bit of a chef so I had seconds as it was just delicious but maybe the view of this deserted island helped too. We continued in the pouring rain to Secret Beach, Shimizu and finished with the Big and Small lagoon. Arriving with a speedboat when all the other Bangka’s were moored in the water was sometimes a bit Footballers wives but the smile and laughter of Captain Nonong was priceless as he is so proud to work with the only speedboat in town! That day I jumped into the water many times to spot a wide variety of colourful fishes, turtle, stingray and a lobster. Unfortunately there were many jellyfish so you had to look up a lot instead of down for not hitting on of these ugly purple looking jellies. There were little ones is the water which made your skin itch and tingly a bit. This was the end of Palawan for me as with a night bus to Puerto Princesa I took a flight to my next destination The Negros.

Black limestone formations