We had booked a van that was supposed to pick us up from our apartment in Puerto Princesa at 11:00. Since there had been so many cancellations and delays during our stay here, we were somewhat sceptical concerning our transport. We did get a very promising text where it said we need to be ready at 10:45. So we were, but the transport wasn’t. Around 11:30 Marko went back to the apartment to use the Wi-Fi there to see if there were any messages from the company that was supposed to take us to El Nido. There wasn’t. So we waited a bit longer. Then it was Jaana’s turn to go back to the apartment to use Whatsapp to call the company. After a short discussion she was told that the van is waiting for another customer at the airport, but it would come to pick us up. They wanted to have the exact address, but Jaana didn’t have that. Only the name of the gated community we were living in. So the lady asked to talk to a local, “a person that understands our conversation”, so Jaana went back to the gate and asked one of the guards there to call the company. After that call we were told again, that the van would pick us up soon. Well, it was a Filipino “soon”, because the van finally arrived a bit after one o’clock.
We started our journey, but the first stop was at the airport. We were told that we needed to wait for that other passenger for fifteen minutes or so. That other passenger never showed up, so we took off a bit after two, only to stop outside the town again. This time the reason was, that it was too expensive to take us there on a van, because it was almost empty. The driver said that he’ll arrange another transport to El Nido for us. So we waited again. We were already going to hop out of the car and tell to the driver that we’ll pay the missing money just to get us going, but then he changed his mind again and we took off. Only to stop after 30min or so to pick up some local passengers to fill up the car. This happened several times during the trip. Because of that and due to the fact that we started about 3,5 hours later than planned, we arrived in El Nido after dark.
Since we hadn’t had anything to eat since breakfast, the first thing we did after checking in, was to search for dinner. We had planned to go to the local supermarket too, but it had closed just before we tried to get in.
We spent the first day in El Nido merely by organising things: buying groceries (not much on offer here, I can tell you that!), booking an island hopping tour and doing school stuff. We did have time to go to the local beach too. There the kids built a big sand castle and two stray dogs moved in right away. It was probably nice to lie in the wet and cool sand.
The previous day when booking the island hopping tour we had been told that we can’t do tour C, because of the wind conditions. We would have wanted to book that one because it apparently covers the best snorkelling spots. But since we couldn’t, we booked tour A instead. We went to the beach to get into the boat, and there the guy from the office comes to us and tells that we can do tour C after all, so we changed group and took a short canoe ride to our boat.
The first stop was for canoeing and swimming. Marko and the kids rented a canoe for 300 pesos (5€) and Jaana stayed on the boat to take pictures.
The spot was beautiful and the steep cliffs were enormous. Really worth a stop. That stop ended to be longer than expected, because suddenly right after we took off to go to the next destination, the engine stopped. At first the crew seemed to act very slowly, but when they opened the hatch where the engine was, they got a move on. There was smoke and flames coming out of the hatch, so they acted pretty quickly and poured some water on the flames. The fire died very quickly, but at this point Ronja was sure that the whole boat is going to explode and that’s the end of the trip. It took a while to calm her down, but eventually she did when she saw the crew mainly laughing when they were trying to fix the engine.
They didn’t manage to fix the engine, so we ended up being towed by another boat to the next island where we had our lunch.
While we were eating and snorkelling the crew managed to fix our boat, so we could continue on our own. We went to Helicopter island next. It was a very brief stop, because we had lost some time when the engine was being fixed.
The fourth stop was at the “Hidden Beach”. It was really hidden and in such a shallow water that our boat couldn’t go there. So it stopped bit further away, and we had to snorkel our way to the beach. Here we saw some baby sharks and Clown fish (“Nemo”) among other colourful fish. The kids surprised us by swimming for such a long time in windy conditions. They were wearing life vests to help them float even better, but nevertheless they weren’t the ones that ended up being towed back to the boat by the crew members. Those five other passengers on the boat apparently weren’t very good swimmers at all, because this towing operation repeated itself at every stop we made.
When we were taking off from the beach, we were told that we were out of oil. So we needed again another boat to tow us back to the town. On the way we stopped one more time for snorkelling. This time the coral reef was larger, but also much deeper than the previous ones. Again our kids hopped in to the sea and started exploring the reef in slightly windy conditions. And again they made their way back to the boat on their own unlike those five passengers that one of the crew members saved from the sea, again.
Eventually we made it back to town. Just as we arrived home, our landlady popped in for a visit. She’s a Swedish woman, who has lived here for 20 years. She gave us a lot of tips what to do and where to go in the Philippines. Based on her recommendation we ended up eating in a Greek restaurant by the beach. The food was delicious!
The next day the island hopping tour went without any big surprises. It was a very windy day, so it was a good thing that we had a bigger boat this time. Also during this trip we had to start snorkelling straight from the boat only once. It was a good thing too, because swimming back to the boat against the big waves is tiring. Nevertheless our kids managed to swim back to the boat without bigger problems.
During this trip we also rented a kayak. This time we took a bigger one, so we all could go together. We went in to this little lagoon, which was super pretty. Even though we had bought water proof pouches for our phones, we didn’t want to take them with us to the lagoon. Many other tourists were apparently convinced that these sealed pouches work well enough, because they took a lot of pictures there.
Snorkelling was good on this trip too. The highlights were Moorish Idols, parrotfish and pufferfish. Underwater world is truly beautiful!
The next day it was time to move on. To our big surprise the van driver came to pick us up few minutes before the scheduled time. He told us that we need to get a tricycle to the bus terminal, because the buses and vans aren’t allowed to drive into the city. So we hopped on trikes and drove to the terminal. There the driver started the car, and…told us to wait for about 15 minutes, because he has to pick up some other passengers too. So we waited…
The driver did come back in fifteen minutes, like he said, and we took off only 30min late from the schedule. But we took off to the wrong direction!!! On the way to pick up some other passengers from some really remote place, we passed our apartment. So the driver could have picked us up from there after all. Finally when we had these three people in the van too, we turned around and started to go to the right direction. We passed our apartment (again) and stopped (again) after four kilometres to pick some more passengers up. Like always, we needed to wait for these passengers too, so eventually when we actually started our journey, we did it only 1,5 h late. That was a big improvement compared to the previous ride to El Nido!
This time, the trip also included a short stop at a local roadside restaurant. We didn’t dare buy any food there, as the portions were ready-made and on display, and it looked like the cold chain might have been broken at some point. So we just bought some ice cream and continued on our way.
Our resort Astoria was a very positive surprise. It is definitely the nicest place we have seen in the Philippines so far. Since the last days we have been swimming only in the salty water, it was great to dip into a pool for a change.
In the evening during the dinner there was a show to entertain the guests. The last number was a fire show, which was great. After the show there was a possibility to take videos together with the performers. The kids went to do that, even though Ronja was slightly worried about her hair being set on fire. Fortunately that did not happen. Risto was convinced that the performers had practised their tricks with dummies first before doing them with real people.
The next day we spent mainly in the water park. Even though it was weekend, the park was almost empty. It was only a positive thing, because now we didn’t have to wait to get into the slides, and we had the “river” going around the park almost all to ourselves.
