El Nido, Philippines

 We flew on Philippine airlines from Bali to Manila and then on Air Swift from Manila to El Nido. It is not an easy or cheap place to get to. But the beautiful islands and warm ocean made it all better once we finally arrived. The first place we stayed was called Shipwrecked Pension house. We booked it on line from Bali. It was right in the middle of town and not on the beach. We did not have a window in the room, which made it a little claustrophobic  but it was actually really quiet at night. We stayed there for a couple of nights, then moved on to the outskirts of town. We were now right on the beach and didn't have all the city busyness as soon as we walked out the door. 

The temp's were really hot!! We spent many an hour laying in the warm waters soaking up the sun. 

We also went for long walks to other nearby beaches. Jumping in the water along the way to cool off. 

Ahh!! This is the life!! We decided to stop on one of our hikes and take a dip and have a nice cold beer.

Miranda and I both love the water. So we hung out together laughing and finding things to talk about even after spending the last 3 months together 24/7

Sunsets in El Nido were fabulous!! 

Still having fun!!

More sun

More reading on the beach

Miranda talking on FaceTime with Brittany! SOOO exciting!! 

The streets of El Nido

Bikes, cars, people, motorized tricycles all trying to find space on the street. A little to chaotic for us. 

                   We found the best pizza joint in El Nido. Wood fired pizzas. So Yummy!!

We went on the island hopping tour A. We wished we had gone on it sooner, as we might have done another one while we were there. Very fun time going from island to island. Snorkelling at some and swimming at others. We saw where they filmed one of the survivor shows. Which we are huge fans of and really liked to see. 

We rented a kayak and paddled around the islands and into little bays that boats are to big for. Miranda jumped off the kayak to go for a snorkel and came flying back on just as quick when she saw massive scary looking jelly fish. It was very funny. 

The feast they made us on the boat during the tour. 

 The view of El Nido town from the water. It is a very bustling town full of friendly people and great food. It is a great place to go on island hopping tours and we had some of the most fabulous scuba diving ever. We found that 1 week was about enough for this area. Next time we would try to find an island that was less touristy. 

 Our place on the beach for 5 nights.

 The view from our little hotel on the beach. During the day, all these boats are out on tours

 We stayed at Entalula beach resort. It included breakfast and was right on the beach owned and run by a very nice lady and her family. She keeps the place running very smoothly. We had a great breakfast every morning delivered to our little deck.

After our time in El Nido, we could not take a flight directly to Cebu, which was where we were flying out of. So we had to take a 5 hour bus ride to a town called Puerto Princessa. This town is where most flights fly in and out of. Making it a little more difficult to get to when headed to EL Nido. Puerto Princessa is not really a town that you would travel to. Its a busy port town that you basically drive to to catch and plane to the island from. 

All is all our time in El Nido was good. We found the town to be much to crazy busy to really want to spend to much time in. There are very few really great places to stay here. It is more set up as a backpacker town and has grown to fast without much thought to planning out how things would work. There are some really nice restaurants and the scuba diving and snorkelling are what this place does really well.