El Nido ( Palawan- Philippines) a paradise?

Oh, how we were excited about Palawan. Since I met the Finn Maria in January 2015, I wanted to go there. The photos she showed us of Nacpan hinted at paradise. After slogging through relevant travel literature and reading a few blogs, I realized that paradise was in danger. Some people with a particularly negative outlook even wrote, 'Don't go to El Nido, it's completely ruined by tourists.' Others warned about the many Asians, especially the Chinese and Koreans, who have discovered the island for themselves.

Nevertheless, we were still relaxed and full of anticipation, expecting nothing much so that we could only be rewarded.

This motto applies to all of my travels, and truly, disappointments have always been limited so far. We had booked the morning flight of Air Asia at 11:15 to Puerto Princesa/ Palawan so that we would have enough time to reach El Nido on the same day.

When we arrived at the airport, Ninoy Aquino, we were already slightly irritated because our taxi driver had never even heard of Terminal 4. He asked every person who passed our taxi, almost even the street dogs who raised their paws in the traffic jam, where in the world Terminal 4 is. We were in tears laughing, the taxi driver in a good mood, celebrating that he had learned something when he finally dropped us off at the truly not new terminal. Inside, it was hell on earth, it was crowded, and the chaos was perfect because all the flights were somehow delayed, canceled, and on top of that, the terminal consisted of only one departure area where people piled up.

We were rebooked to another plane, one that was supposed to leave at 5:15 in the morning - it was 9:00! The airline calmly distributed breakfast to everyone and cheerfully announced every 15 minutes further delays. At the same time, I read about ferry and flight accidents in the internet, for which the country is famous, notorious even because Filipinos cannot wait for anything properly. That wasn't exactly inspiring.... but wait, stop---- Air Asia is from Malaysia, right? Not necessarily better.......

Finally, it turned out that we were the lucky losers that day. The 5:15 am flight took off on time at our new departure time of 11:15 - the plane had just arrived from Cebu and wasn't the malfunctioning one that had been tinkered with for hours. By the way, the 11:15 am flight was rescheduled to after 3:00 pm, it probably never even took off from Manila. That's the flight experience in the Philippines... not for the faint of heart.

When we arrived in Puerto Princesa (PP), we immediately got an impression of the growing tourism. From the shuttle bus to El Nido to the billboards competing for hotel and restaurant chains of all kinds. Puerto Princesa is probably the most faceless but somehow also the coziest little town without any sights that I have had the pleasure of getting to know..... and certainly the city with one of the most beautiful names in the world. Puerto Princesa, the harbor of the princess, will probably only be topped by Mandalay, which immediately makes you think of almond pudding.

Our shuttle bus was packed to the brim, our driver was in a very, very big hurry. A Filipino-Swiss couple, who runs a guesthouse in El Nido, was also in the bus. They were very sympathetic people who gave us one or two tips. The journey is incredibly long, the island is also very big. Although the roads are quite well developed, it takes about 6 hours or 4.5 hours if you're traveling with the Filipino reincarnation of Ayrton Senna. We passed coconut plantations, villages with bamboo architecture (the huts are very simple and simply built), and a lot of jungle and mountains. Along the way, we stopped at a restaurant, and the wild Luzie continued over this island full of wild beauty, with few places, little traffic, which suited our Ayrton and the lives of the passengers and other road users very well.

We arrived in El Nido before dark, the limestone formations had already announced it many kilometers ago.

EL Nido - the nest - an ugly dead-end road with hotels on both sides leads from the mountains into the town, which actually consists only of two to three parallel streets towards the sea, as well as a school, a church, and a football field. But that's where the action is. It has everything that a traveler's heart desires: pancake shops, guesthouses, travel agencies, and dive shops with not-so-dry dry bags, as we found out during our journey. We took the last meters with a tricycle and arrived at our guesthouse named Forever Blessed. Fantastic, located in the first parallel street, three minutes away from the water. The owners were very warm-hearted, and it is certainly one of the best options in the nest - some of the hotels don't look so inviting.

The rooms were simple but new and exemplary clean. We had a balcony facing the street and enjoyed a Don Papa rum there, feeling at home.

Dinner was by the beach, although calling it a beach is a bit of a stretch. The place is literally built up to the shore, there is no clean beach in El Nido - such a shame, it must have been so beautiful. Nevertheless, the evening atmosphere had something, and the seafood tasted wonderful. After 1-4 beers :-), we went to bed, as the day of travel had been quite exhausting.

First day in El Nido

The next morning, we had breakfast on the beach and enjoyed the fantastic view. YES, it had already been worth coming here for that.

Of course, you could say that you can see something similar in Thailand. I say - yes, but - because it's wilder and more untamed here, overall, much less touristy.

Yes, the tourist masses have arrived in El Nido and outside the town, the first luxury resorts have been built, and the Chinese and Koreans have actually discovered the town and its surroundings.

However, if you move just a few kilometers out of the orbit of the nest, you will discover real beach jewels and no construction cranes.

On the first morning, we decided to take a tricycle to Las Cabanas.

These funny little vehicles come in second after my preference for jeepneys and are even crazier than tuk-tuks in Thailand.

Las Cabanas is located about 3 km outside the town. You get off the tricycle and have to walk down a steep path to the beach. It wasn't really empty, but far from being called crowded. From there, the famous zipline starts, and there are also a few small bungalow resorts and beach bars. I think, if I were to visit El Nido again, I would look for a little bungalow at this place

We enjoyed a lazy day at the beach and made plans for the next day. The real gems of El Nido are revealed during the island hopping tours. There are four tours, and everyone raves about Tours A and C, which we also tried. In the evening, we sat at the enchanting Art Cafe and enjoyed a delicious curry.

2nd day, El Nido, Tour A:

The program included beaches and lagoons. The names Secret Lagoon, Small Lagoon, Big Lagoon were nowhere near an exaggeration. Unfortunately, I had to say goodbye to my DSLR camera that day because it didn't like saltwater. As a result, from now on, dear readers, you'll only see photos taken with my phone..... but these little things can do it quite well nowadays

First, in the morning, we had to walk through the water to our boat, stomach-deep. At that point, I still had hope that my Pentax would survive the adventure. The first waves were no problem either, but then we got soaking wet for the first time.

Our first destination was 7 Commandos Beach. It had a resort and was 100% geared towards day tourists. Nevertheless, this beach revealed a first impression of the beaches on Palawan - truly top-notch :-)

All the following pictures show the lagoons and beaches of Tour A:

hidden bays everywhere