I spent most of the morning really quite drained as I got up and found some food to eat: I went to the market and got some fruit, to a backery and got some cakes and to a stall and got a burger (quite wanted some nuts, but the burger was cheaper, quite wanted a bacon sandwich but they were out of bacon).

List of foods consumed this morning:

• 4 bananas
• 1 mango
• 7 cookies
• 3 slices of cake
• 2 cupcakes
• 2 large donuts
• 1 burger

Total cost: about 1.75 pounds

I then had lunch with Nathan (chap from my dorm) on the beach in a restaurant:

• Noodle vegetable soup with an egg
• 1 drink

Total cost: about 1.75 pounds.

I felt pretty rubbish from eating quite so much delicious food, and not having eaten the day before, so I napped for an hour and had a shower. Then I felt much better. So much better that after the huge downpour I walked the trek to the airport (just over 1 hour up hill in 30 degrees, with my 13kg pack on my back), which saved me almost as much as the cost of all my day’s food so far 😛 I’m sure I looked pretty stupid walking all the way into the private airport dripping with sweat in my scruffy trekking gear as everyone else came in in their air conditioned vans all dressed up in their fassionable holiday clothes. I did get a number of questions and looks of humour from the security as I explained that yes I had walked from town.

Plane was 2.5 hours late, but in the end after landing I got out and walked around to terminal 3 arrivals where I met one Ms Amy Darters! 😀 We then travelled to the hostel I had booked, we tried to get to the railway station, taking a P7 jeepney, then walking through some very busy and rubbish littered markets to find that the station was closed. We then just grabbed an uber to the hostel.

After briefly sorting all of our things out, we decided to go to china town to see what new year activities were happening. We watched some dragon costume dancing stuff, ate lots of interesting foods that we’d never had before (some interesting dumpling noodle soup stuff, some omelet oniony ball things in different sauces (really rather tasty), come duck stuff and a pie type thing that was entirely made from really hard jelly stuff with very little to no flavour… We then watched the firework display, unfortunately because we were right underneath between high rise buildings, we couldn’t see all that much. But it was fun non the less. An enjoyable night.

My phone then ran out of battery, so we didn’t know how to get back and couldn’t remember where our hostel was, so we tried to buy a new cable to charge it up from Amy’s reserve battery thing, but the reserve battery thing had died. We also tried to find anywhere that had WiFi so we could use Amy’s phone, but nowhere was available. We did manage to get a taxi and after much umming and arrring we did arrive back at our hostel mainly by the fact that we recognised a few places. Then we went off to our dorms and to sleep.

El Nido, what can I say? It’s the coolest place I’ve been so far. It’s apparently the second most expensive place in the Philippines after Manlia, but if you have a keen eye you can find some pretty cheap accommodation (admittedly only a couple of places, and they aren’t the most pleasant of places) and cheap food (tip, look for where the locals eat).

But the whole town is in on the same 4 island hopping tours (A,B,C and D) all for the same price wherever you go. There are loads of diving shops too, but I’m saving my scuba for later in my stay in the Philippines. The locals are all really friendly, no one is pushy, it’s quite the boho town for people wanting to escape from Manila for somewhere more relaxed and beautiful.

It’s developing at quite a rate, and I expect that in 10 years that it’ll be almost all concrete tourist buildings for a couple of rows from the beach and the locals will be pushed even further out of time, the other beaches in the area will also get the same treatment. I’m sure even Napcan Beach will soon be populated with tourists at this peak time of year when the road to it is completely converted to concrete. But the beauty of nature that engulfs this is really breathtaking and if you stop and take a look around almost anywhere you will be quite taken back. The tours that go round really make the most of the incredible landscape.

Today is a practical day. With the flight back to Manila tomorrow and a pretty packed schedule from then on I took this morning to do all my washing and plan the rest of the stay in the Philippines. Creating my couchsurfing profile and that sort of thing. Then spent the afternoon and early evening in prayer, reading the Bible and spending time in God’s presence, love it, such a great way to spend a day. I’m also doing something I’ve never done before (holidays, perfect time for trying new things) I fasted for the day, eating nothing and only drinking water, never done that before, but I’ve actually found it really helpful for focusing on God as even when I was doing planning and doing my washing whenever I feel hungry it draws me straight back into prayer.

After hanging my clothes up to dry I went out to a secluded spot on the beach further down the coast from El Nido town (about a 45 min walk) and found a spot to put up my hammock. I read a solid portion of Numbers and prayed, covering myself with my towel and the edges of my hammock when as it rained and before I could get out my ukulele to sing some worship the tide started to come back in enough to almost maroon me on my patch of rocks, so I had to down hammock and head back to town.

Then I did more organising and went to sleep.

I found fasting although quite draining, I found it helpful to keep bringing me back to prayer throughout the day, because every time I felt hungry (which was often, especially when walking through town where everywhere sells delicious smelling food) I would be drawn back to prayer.

I did my second day of island hopping today! 😀

When we got to the tout, it turned out that there were only the 2 of us that had booked with him, so Nathan and I had accidentally managed to book ourselves a private tour, which is usually a lot more pesos, so that was good for us. But it turned out that it was costing him money but it was too late to move us to another boat. So many ways that the island hopping businesses could be run better to stop this from happening, but hey, they were making money on the other tour that they were doing and their bike hiring, so all is gravy 🙂

There were 5 island stops to this tour: 

Helicopter Island: so called because it looks a bit like the body of a helicopter, which is odd as apparently the locals haven’t seen a helicopter, as I found out when on the other tour: one of the guides got very excited when he saw two low flying propeller planes, the ones that land in water, and was calling them helicopters. Anyway, it has a lovely beach with loads of great coral reefs where we saw some clown fish as I tried out a little bit of free diving, only like 5 meters. Clown fish are very well represented in Finding Nemo, it must be said, they stay in one sort of blobily corral and they are very timid, they’ll very quickly swim back to cover, but they are tiny and adorable, especially the tiny tiny ones.

Secret Beach: so called because one side you have to go through a cave to get to it and the other side you have to go through weaving cliffs to find it. It was a nice beach, lots of spaces of good shade for me, but quick busy at that time. But it was very quiet as soon as you got to the beach.

Starfish island: so called because it is home to loads of starfish… I managed to see no starfish at all on that island though. But there were loads of different beaches, so maybe they were more prevalent on other islands. It’s on that island that we had our lunch, that was quite a lot of food for just the two of us, but I managed to consume every last scrap 🙂 

Secret Cove: A cove that you have to swim through a tunnel to get to, it’s a sweat little cove someone had written I *heart* El Nido in rocks and shells which was nice. It was surrounded by steep sheer cliffs of black limestone (as is most of El Nido and Buiscuit Bay), which is eroded by the weather into sharp points. 

I forget the other stop.

Unfortunately I have little to know photographs and footage because my phone and video camera arean’t waterproof.

The trip to Starfish Island was particularly rough as we went out towards the sea and the waves were 3 times that size of our little boat!

Despite my best efforts I managed to burn the backs of my knees, it must have been when snorkelling.

After the long boat ride back we went and had some chicken curry at a street stall. If you want any cheap food, look to see where the locals go, and street food will likely be cheaper than inside. On almost any street you can get chicken skewers for P10 (15p), always a good call. You can always spot the locals munching on these things.

One thing I have noticed is that the locals litter a lot, even on the remote islands. Whereas the tourists seem to be very good at not doing so.

This morning I had quite a slow and lazy morning, and after I woke I noticed that I’d gained a number of bites all over my body, so after treating them, by 10:30 we’d hired a bike/scooter type thing and we were heading up to Nagkalit-kalit waterfall. After about 20 min ride up through the villages and beautiful countryside we got to the start of the trekk, a local asked if we wanted a guide for P400 (6 pounds), we decided to save our pesos and try and find it ourselves. It was beautiful jungle with all sorts of different trees and bamboos, rivers streams and bogs, all sorts of wildlife that you could see and hear. And of course we got very lost for about an hour taking the wrong route. After backtracking and taking a few different routes we finally found the waterfall, it was really pretty (unfortunately my pictures didn’t take correctly), it is dry season so there wasn’t that much water coming down it, but it was nice and cool and we’d only seen about 6 tourists in our 2 hour trek to find it and get back, so it was nice secluded and ours for a moment as we had a lovely dip.

After walking back we biked further off to Napcan beach. As we biked along, the road suddenly went from smooth new concrete to dirt and rock road, so we went a lot slower and more cauciously. But when we got their our breath was taken away as we saw this huuuuuuuuuuuge beach that just went on and on with such beautiful sand too. We stopped and had a meal in the only restraunt on the beach and enjoyed the view before wondering down the beach before we decided we had to start making our way back so we’d get there before the store closed.

We then went off and had a quick street curry, now I’m exhausted from all the heat and very much need my sleep.

Yesterday we booked a sunrise climb of the Tawal cliffs, so I woke up at 4:30, dipped in the sea to cool off the sunburn, filtered some water and packed for the climb.

We started the climb at 5:30. The day before we’d heard that a guide had fallen, and was now in a coma… That didn’t install confidence, but neither was it to put us off.

We walked through the back streets of the town, surrounded by sooo many roosters crowing all around. Then got out to the start of the jungle that we were to climb through. It swiftly became apparent that this was definitely a climb and not a trek, everything was jagged limestone rocks, everything was at least 45 degrees, it was intense, we were all dripping with sweat (the guide, my Canadian buddy Nick and I) by half way, it was also 28 degrees and very humid, our hands were getting a bit cut up too. After almost an hour’s climbing by torchlight (I got to use my Pretzl e-lite head torch, it was perfect, exactly what I needed, thank you mother :)) we got to the top, to see the incredible view before the sun started to rise over the other rocks. But the sun was blocked by clouds as it had been raining for the last quarter.

After going a little higher we decided to head down. This was a lot harder as the rocks were now getting slippy from the rain. I did slip and one point and bashed my shin pretty solidly on the edge of a rock, got a good cut and a lot of brushing. We also saw all the gawes packaging and a lot of blood where the guide had fallen. We also crossed a couple with a guide going up, they were much more sensible, with climbing cloves and helmets (well the couple at least). After a long dripping wet decent we got back to town and went and had a well deserved breakfast of tampori I think it was called, sticky chicken, rice and eggs (everything here is meat, rice and eggs).

Then we both went back to our dorms to shower and nap, as we were tired and it was still tipping it down with rain.

I booked at 7:30 to go on an island hopping toor around some of the local islands and lagoons.

Tour starts at 9:00 so I went and had some breakfast and the like with a chap from my dorm that I bumped into and also then signed up to the tour (A Canadian called Nick, I always seem to hang out with Canadians, they’re all so nice).

There are so many stores that offer the tours! Loads of people have boats and take you out, they are quite officially done so that they’re all about the same price, include the same sites etc. Everywhere on the first road off the beach is either a bar a diving shop or a tour booking place. Loads of people have tour boats, it’s good money for those who can.

The tour started with a long boat ride out to one of the other beaches on this island only accessible by sea: there was loads of coral there and thus loads of great fish to see. Oh yeah we had snorkels and masks on the boat, I’d never done it before so I got as involved as possible. It was amazing! I love it so much!

Then next stop was called the big lagoon which was in an island, there was loads of amazing fish their too, but to get to the lagoon you had to walk over shallow broken coral areas, it was soon sharp! I cut my left foot up. I should have taken my flip flops and in, or invested in one of the kayaks. But it was cool when you got to the lagoon, very very deep, I didn’t think to dive down, but it was very warm too. Then I had to come back to the boat for time reasons.

Then we went to the small lagoon, this was much quieter, and we hired a kayak for here, it was beautiful! The water was so clear that you didn’t need to snorkel, you could see all the fish from their surface! It was a great place!

Then we went back out to the boat and had a feast of a lunch! 🙂 Fresh fish, pork, chicken, rice, cucumber, egg plant, water Mellon pineapple, mini bananas, it was amazing! I finished everything off (of course).

Then we went to the secret lagoon, the lagoon was okay, it was through a tiny cave, but the beach there was absolutely amazing!!! 1 small hut, loads of amazing sand, incredible views, breathtaking.

Then we went off to other places, but I forget where, so many beautiful places! Then we had to go back, but it was all so amazing! Unfortunately I couldn’t take photos in most places, due to fear of water damage.

Then when we got back to the beach, after a shower we went to the beach on the other side of the island and watched the sunset, it was so beautiful! Then got some street meat and an early night… Well when I got back I found out that when diving I had got some sunburn, even though on the boat I always stayed in the shade and wore lots of sun cream. But none of it was too bad, but I treated it all well.

Another amazing day.

I decided to go a more direct route than normal to El Nido on Palawan island, I’ve got a direct flight from a plane company that doesn’t come up on any web search and I had to email them directly to book the flight. It’s a 40 person plane, I’ll see how it goes…

Today’s big outing was climbing Taal, an active volcano in the middle of a lake that was formed from a huuge volcano exploding.

Woke up at 5am to have a big breakfast and make the most of the day.

Journey out: Started by getting my first ever uber across to coastal bus station and catching the bus to Tagatay town: coaches vary a lot, this one had a widescreen tv, surround sound and live to channels, so some terribly low budget action films were playing. Even though the leg room was by no stretch of the imagination suitable for anyone 6′ tall, I managed to sleep for probably about 3/4 of the journey, which was a shame, because what was flying past was very interesting. An interesting thing about coaches here is that people hop on and walk down the isles selling things at every stop, mainly peanuts around here, they also walk down the middle of the streets where the traffic is slow, which is almost everywhere. After getting off a town too late we got a jeepney back to Tagatay: a jeepney is an old WW2 long jeep made for quickly manovering soldiers, they are generally done up with shiny metal and slogans, mainly christian ones such as “God loves you”or “God is love” etc. They are only tall enough to be sat down in, but almost every journey is 10 pesos (15p).  Then we took a tricycle to the edge of the lake down a road with the most number of warning signs I have ever seen! Mainlywarnings about dangerous corners and landslides. Once at the bottom we grabbed a boat with 3 other people and hired a guide to take us to the top. The journey on the water was wet 😛 The waves were huger than the hull of the small boat, luckily we had large stabilisers and nothing that was too sensitive to a bit of water, but it was a lot of fun 🙂

Once on the island we walked through the small village there, up a well used path amongst others climbing up and down on horses, stopping for some of the group to catch their breath and for us to take in some of the breathtaking views.

Once we got to the top and could look into the volcano we could see the water boiling, lots of pilmbs of sulphur and there was even an island in the lake in the volcano island in the lake in a volcano crater on an island. We waddled off to a slightly less well trodden area to take in some views without so many people around, it was really amazing… Appart from the smell, which was quite pungent.

Then the journey back was pretty much exactly the same in reverse, but this time the coach didn’t have a tv, but was playing classic rock all the way.

Got back to the hostel, had to do my washing and managed to get my washing stuck in the machine, the staff said I should let them sort it all out, I just hope it’s dry by the time I leave for my flight tomorrow. Another 5am start. Now of to bed for me 🙂 A day well spent.

It’s quite hard to get stuff organised here as it’s mind meltingly hot, all you want to do is sleep, Internet is intermittent and most stuff in the Philippines isn’t advertised online, it’s mainly all, be in the know, book by email or phone (email in my case as my phone line doesn’t seem to want to work and the error message that I get when I try and make a call isn’t in English and the numbers that it mentions to call are also blocked… Smooth.

I have managed to book flights to El Nido on the island of Palawan, and a trip to the volcano island of Taal (which is a volcano island that has exploded inside the lake that is a crater of a much larger volcano that exploded ages ago).

I also in the two days, I made good use of the pool and had lots of fun with the other residence. Also took the took took-esk things that are prevalent around here simply called tricycles, a 5 min journey on one of those is about 15p, although they’re definitely made for people of max height 5.5′.