El Nido (Part One)

When planning for the Palawan leg of our vacation, we debated whether or not to spend time in El Nido. There is no flight linking Puerto Princessa to El Nido and we had heard that the bus ride there is well over seven hours long (it was actually closer to five). In the end, the promise of its diverse marine life and unique scenery won out. Besides, I've found that covering so much ground isn't so terrible when experiencing a terrain for the first time.

We arrived too early for our departure. Our hiker's backpacks were taken from us and thrown in a storage bin built into an old school bus. The driver looked at our printed out e-mail confirmation and pointed us over to an area where vans were parked. Apparently, we paid a little more for the van ride, which we pretty much realized when we saw that the bus was full of locals. Our bags were removed and then strapped to the roof of the van where they ended up covered in a red dust that had the consistency of clay. A result of high speeds and dirt roads.

Sami and I sat shotgun in the cramped van. My knees were in my chest and the bench seat was worn down and slanted toward the passenger door. My right butt cheek inevitable fell asleep from the angle, so I placed my paperback underneath to compensate. I can never read in a moving vehicle anyway.

We each shared an earpiece to my iPod to pass the time. I remember we listened to Bob  Marley, which I am quickly figuring for anthem music anywhere there is sun and an ocean view. The restaurant we dined in played hits of the dreadlocked Rasta later that night. The sound was tinny because of the shared audio accessory, but that didn't stop Bob from helping us appreciate being away from cold and responsibilities in a beautiful, warm, lazy locale.

We stopped somewhere midway at a little roadside eatery. They dished out local specials like the pigs blood tripe stew dinoguan for about a buck a slotted spoonful (43 Filipino pesos I believe). I got some of that and a glass bottle of coke. I am sure we got some chips too or maybe crackers being they were one of the few foods Sami could keep down during her first trimester of pregnancy. I fed a lot of my food to a skinny dog that didn't bring to much attention to himself, just happy for the scraps before moving on.

The ride was smooth for the most part, until the tail end. When I was in college, I worked for the Bureau of Land Management fighting wildfires. We once patrolled an area known as the Jordan Craters, out near Jordan Valley, Oregon. It was basically an endless field of volcanic boulders and sage brush. Anyway, the final leg to El Nido wasn't as bad as that.

I wish I would have taken more pictures of the road, or at least jotted down a few notes or sketched a picture. Lets see, the dirt roads were kind of orange, lots of motorbikes putted along in front of us and our driver would whip by them with a honk, and when the ocean finally made its appearance it was a magical experience. That's about all I can recall.

Our little hotel on the beach was quaint, but featured a spectacular view of the limestone cliffs that line the bay used as a jump off point for day rides out the the islands that freckle the waters nearby. We took a seat at an outdoor restaurant on the sand. Sami tried to eat pasta and I had a whiskey. They didn't play any Bob, but I hummed a tune in my head, happy to be on vacation and happy we made the decision to come.