Travel day - El Nido

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After breakfast we headed to the bus terminal for our 8am van to El Nido. The space between seats was very tight and there were a few very tall people which would have been super uncomfortable, so they moved a couple of them to another van. We headed off almost on time.
The scenery on the way was beautiful. Lush green paddy fields, coconut trees, little villages, water buffalo, a live goat standing on top of a moving bus, not something you see everyday!

The journey was about 4 hours, up and down along some winding roads and as we neared El Nido we had amazing views out to sea with all the little limestone cast islands dotted around.

Our accommodation in El Nido was right near the bus terminal, so we dropped our bags and went for lunch. Next we headed to the Montenegro Shipping Office to pay for the tickets the helpful people in Port Barton had managed to reserve for us. We asked to speak to a manager to express our frustration with their system but there was no one available. The only manager is in Coron, so we will try again there!

Accommodation in El Nido is at least double and sometimes triple the price of anywhere else we have stayed in the Philippines. We had, therefore expected a fancy town, full of fancy resorts. We were wrong! It is a dusty little town that almost looks like the town that time forgot. The view from the beach is beautiful of all the limestone islands, although the beach in Port Barton was much nicer. Also it seems at various times of day the electricity goes off and everyone starts up their generators....which are particularly noisy, especially when this happens during the night!!


We then walked back past our accommodation to another bay to watch the sunset. This bay had a number of sailing boats from around the world anchored. This is also where all the island hopping trips come and go from.



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