At exactly 7am of march 19 of 2013, Me and my friends, Shiela and Rafy arrived at Puerto Prinsesa Airport. It was a beautiful and perfect sunny Tuesday for us to start our summer escapade. Our trip was arranged by an online group buying site which included the Airfare, Hotel Accommodation, and our Boat Tour for El Nido except for land transfer from Puerto Prinsesa to El Nido. I contact my friend, Cayen who resides at Puerto Prinsesa to make an arrangement with her known travel agency to fetch and brought us to bus terminal station going to El Nido.
From Puerto Prinsesa to El Nido, it took us 8 hours of travel by land. So after long hours of travel, we finally headed to apartment to rest. We are kinda a little bit curious about what really El Nido will look like so we rested early.
We woke up at 7am to do our early morning routine and prepared for our 8am scheduled island hopping. The Hotel prepared our breakfast and finally headed to the beach wherein we will meet our Tourist guide. While the boatman is still preparing for our boat and waiting for other tourist, we took pictures and we are really surprised with it. El Nido is really a beautiful place, it was indeed a worth the travel. By the way, since the Metrodeal was the one who arranged the island tour, they are also the one who chose our tour package. The El Nido tour package has four choices from A to D. And every tour package takes a whole day to experience it, So I would recommend that If you really want to experience El Nido you need to stay at least four days.
The Tour guide instructed us to wear the Life jacket for safety purposes. And the Tour Guide also give us some information about what we need to know in our Island Hopping Tour.
For our first stop, Small Lagoon. We need to take Kayak ride to explore the place because the place is quite small for big boats. If you are good enough to swim or you wanted to take some exercise, you you may do so. Swimming with life vest is really tiring and exhausting. But once you enter the place you will really appreciate the beauty and you’ll know that all the effort is worth it. Unfortunately, we were not able to take pictures inside. We wouldn’t want our cameras to get wet.
Second stop is the Big Lagoon where the movie Bourne Legacy was shot.
Here are the sumptuous food prepared specially for us by the boatmen. They are so creative and also the food is really inviting and indeed delicious!
Third stop is in this Secret Lagoon, where our lunch was served by our boatmen. Upon entering the Secret Lagoon you need to walk through the beach with the water above waist level. You will also enter the small hole to see the beauty of Secret Lagoon. Being a camwhore, it’s a great time to pose and take pictures at the place.
After having our lunch, we hopped into the boat again to continue our tour. We are not able to go to our Fourth destination due to strong wave so the tour guide re-route us at the Simizu. We are able to swim with the fish.
Since the sunset cannot be experienced at the El Nido Town, One of the tourist suggested if we’d like to stay at 7th Commando but it’s not included in our tour because we are supposed to be back at 4pm so we just added 200 pesos for each passenger. Before going to 7th Commando, we dropped by a beach front in which I can’t remember the name. The sand here is really fine like the sand in Panglao, Bohol. Since the resident also have a store there, we bought Coconut Juice for refreshment.
After waiting and having a small chit chat with the other tourist, we headed headed to 7th Commando where we will witness the sunset.
El Nido wouldn’t be complete if we don’t go out at night. We chose to dine in a beach front restaurant. We met Mr. Joshua Castellana, a New Yorker guy who happens to be traveler and a writer.
El Nido is indeed a hidden paradise but also a great and awesome place to visit. Its like watching a travel show in a Television. Sometimes, its not about how the beautiful place you’ve gone to, it’s all about the good friends and the people you met as you go along.
