Beyond the Peace Corps and Through the Looking Glass: Ahh - that's what all the hype is about

The 5th time was the charm - after trying 4 times to get there, I finally made it to legendary El Nido with no typhoon or even rain cloud in sight! El Nido gets such hype here as a tourist destination, that one wonders if it can live up to expectations...it did for me!

I was invited by 5 young people to be their chaperon for 4 days over a holiday weekend - I jumped at the invitation and set to work out the details.

My supervisor and friend, Bart Duff, Executive VP at the Chamber of Commerce also brings over interns to Palawan for a month or two (after their 5 month immersion program at University of Philippines at Los Banos) - this year he had 5 interns from Michigan who had only 3 weeks here and wanted to do some good projects. It is amazing what work you can get when someone has an expertise that you don't - my PCV friend Matthew was lucky that two of the interns were civil engineers and designed excellent blueprints of Matt's project at the Dept of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) which is creating a space for Children in Conflict with the Law (CICL as it is known here, in this land of acronyms), complete with dormitory, guard house, gardens, fish pond, welding shop - it looks beautiful on paper. Another, electrical engineer student, Jose, worked with PALECO, the power plant, which is less than stellar...and he saw the reasons why. Violeta is in a nursing program and worked with a maternal care NGO, Roots of Health, as did Ken, who worked with me to set up a survey for them both on maternal and infant morbidity and care, as well as incidence of neurological issues like Intellectual Disabilities, Cerebral Palsy and Autism.

I had only met them once before we all met up for the "jaunt" to El Nido. My new friend, Eva, who grew up in El Nido, but now works with my old friend, Bob Abelson in NJ, gave me the name of several resorts owned by her family - and we settled on Entalula, right on the El Nido town beach. Emy, Eva's sister-in-law, arranged a private van for us to get there speedily - under 6 hours. It was double the regular price of a van, but there were no regular vans - so we splurged and took off from Puerto at 5:30am, with the very silent Tonton as our driver.

The road out of Puerto is paved and speeding is normal.

All the guys were asleep, but I rode shotgun so that I could see the sights.

I am always curious and never seem to be able to sleep on trips.

We passed buses on their way to Roxas - Miss Na Kita!

And several Army jeeps

About 4 hours into the trip, the road abruptly turned to dirt, at Taytay, and my friends began awakening

They started watching the sights as well - as men hauling wood
with their carabaw whizzed by (we were still speeding -
really quite exhilarating!)

The road was so dusty that you can't see their jeep anymore!

Although I much preferred to have same-way travelers
rather than this come around the dusty corner!

Almost there!

Great time - 5.5 hours from picking me up until delivering us to the door at the Entalula!! There's no way of telling what it will look like from the streets, which are tiny and narrow, with lots of folks. But, walking to check in - wow!

The lobby looks just like a postcard

As did the incredible view from our rooms!

We were all on a budget, so slept 3 in a room - next door to each other. We headed around the rocks to a more open beach with fewer bottles on it. We frolicked in the waves a bit and of course I shelled, but we all grew bored (no fish for me to see). They elected to look around town and I told them after dinner that I wanted to shower and read. Since the electric only comes on at 2pm and lasts until 6am, I wanted to enjoy it. Unfortunately, there was a brown out - even with the normal limited electric they still had a long brown out! - and the noise and the smellof the generators dispelled the romance...so I hit the rack early that night in preparation for our next morning's island hopping.

Entalula arranged everything for us and at a reduced price - although the tours are standard and a routine is followed - we were tourists after all. We did Tour A and were wowed - the pictures below explain.

Our beautiful group

Heading out of the El Nido harbor

The cliffs loom high on the left as you motor out

And then you just notice BLUE

The turquoise blue coves

The gray-blue mountains

And the multi hued kalaidescopes of blue!

We ate our lunch here - in between two waters

And the snorkeling here, off this private beach was spectacular.

I'll definitely be back to this beach - even though I saw my first sharks - two of them - a 4 and 6 footer, black tip reef shark. I scared the shit out of them as I snorkeled almost on top of them resting in the sand - their shit wasn't quite as apparent as mine - and I sucked in water as I kept watch over my shoulder swimming back to the boat. The guide said that if he had told me about the 5 meter (what!) sharks that were around, I wouldn't have gone in. It actually didn't scare me nearly as much as the sea snake I saw in Honda Bay - plus I had no time to think....but did head to the boat straightaway.....

And that was only our first trip out - we returned to do trip B the following day, although we were rather sunburned and tired. No one could keep up with me - I think I have sprouted gills - and I must have been in the water 24 of the 72 hours we were there. The same guides took us to an incredible Lagoon where we snorkeled and saw a huge black and white moray eel, and were bitten by the territorial fish - just little nips, but still unnerving. As we headed back, it was just glorious!