Palawan, Part II: El Nido

After few days in Puerto Princesa, we took an 8-hour bus (more on that later) to El Nido, a little village nestled between limestone cliffs and the sea.

View of El Nido from the cliffs (photo from El Nido Boutique and Art Cafe).

The highlight of El Nido is exploring the small islands off the coast (Palawan is all about the island hopping!), which you can get to by taking a banca boat. We went with a group and did two different tours, known as A and C (you can see the routes here). Both days involved the most phenomenal snorkeling. Even Joel was blown away, and he's done a lot of snorkeling in his day! Unfortunately, we didn't have an underwater camera, so there aren't any pictures to share here. Let's just say we saw sea turtles, sting rays, sea anemones and clownfish, moray eels, and as many different kinds of fish and coral as you can possibly imagine. Sometimes it was as if we were swimming in an aquarium, there were so many fish.

Hanging out on one of the many islands in Bacuit Bay.

On tour C, we also got to go to the so-called secret beach, which the The Beach is supposedly based on. You have to swim through a tiny hole to get to the beach, which is surrounded on all sides by limestone cliffs. The beach was a lot smaller than I expected, but it was still a pretty cool experience.

Can you see the entrance to the secret beach? It's to the left of the prow.

Island hopping was pretty much the only thing we did in El Nido. There's not much of a beach near the town, so we didn't have much choice, but the boat trips were so amazing that it really didn't matter that it took a little work to get there--in fact, that just added to the allure.

It's hard to beat island hopping in the middle of the Pacific!

El Nido is a truly unique place, and luckily for us it's a bit off the beaten track, so although it's gaining fame it's not yet overrun by tourists. My advice? Get there before the government makes it easier to get to and it's discovered by the backpacking hordes.