We jumped on a bus from the San Juan bus terminal in Puerto Princesa to go to El Nido. This time we paid a little extra and had air con and our own seats with a little more room to breathe! The bus took around 7 hours and although was a bumpy ride, we'd had worse.
Our lovely friend Rema had booked us a few nights stay in her friends place here for a very cheap price of 500 pesos a night. We checked in but after one night of no air con in + 31 heat (real feel +43) and very little sleep we moved to another hotel just down the road that was a little more comfortable.

With so much time left to us before we leave we decided to take our time in El Nido slowly and have a few lazy days. This actually ended up working out very well as after our first two nights the town was plagued with downpours of heavy rain nearly all day every day.

El Nido is a very small town with a lot of tourists which means a good variety of bars and restaurants. We had a great time spending the evenings in the beach front reggae bars making friends, enjoying live bands and relaxing with some shisha. There is also a hostel right on the beach, with small tables and a scattering of bean bags to chill out on whilst listening to the waves and gazing at the stars as you sip on your San Miguel or cocktail. El Nido has a really great laid back vibe that we really enjoyed.

We also found probably our favourite restaurant in the Philippines here in El Nido. A small place called Blue Azul on a back street that sees few customers due to its distance from the beach. The restaurant served a variety of foods but much of it had an Arab feel. Our favourite here was the falafel and hummus. The best homemade hummus we have ever had and when accompanied with falafel, whether in a burger or pita, the flavours were out of this world. We returned to our new favourite restaurant three times throughout our week in El Nido.

After spending a couple of days lazing around catching up on some reading and walking around the small town to get our bearings we decided to join some other backpackers we'd met on an Island hopping tour. There are a huge amount of island hopping companies in El Nido, all that offer the same tours, Tour A, B and C. Supposedly A and C are the best tours and are great for snorkelling so this time we chose A.
Tour A took us to Small Lagoon, Big Lagoon and Secret Lagoon. These were all beautiful blue water lagoons surrounded by the towering limestone cliffs that El Nido is known for. The only disappointment was the other hundreds of tourists that had also decided to do this tour. We didn't expect having to form a queue in the water as we waited to climb through the small hole in the rocks to make our way into secret lagoon.
Our fourth location was at a beach that would have been far more attractive and appealing if the rain hadn't decided to spoil the location. However, rain brings out the fish and so snorkelling here was beyond anything we could have imagined. We spent a long time drifting through the waters gazing upon schools of colourful fish, following the most interesting before being distracted by a stingray playing in the sand, or a huge blue starfish sprawled across the ocean floor. At one stage Greg spotted a stripped spiky Lion fish and tried to get it out of its hole with his flippers to later be told by another swimmer that it is actually very poisonous. We spent ridiculous amounts of time floating in the warm waters watching Nemo come in and out of his anemone, nervous of the huge snorkelers above him. Nature at its best. Beautiful, magical, mesmerising.

Our trip also included a delicious lunch of fresh fish, marinated eggplant, salads, fruits, barbecued pork and chicken. We were beyond satisfied with our tour, the lunch and the awesome people we met.

So after a few more rainy days, blurred with rum and card playing, hula hooping and eating (a lot) we met another group of awesome backpackers and Greg managed to persuade a group to go fishing. A short trip from 6am to 10am but it was well worth the early rise. The Filipinos do not use fishing rods but just the line with a weight attached to the bottom and two hooks. We were lucky this day to get some beautiful morning weather and so we spent four hours filling up a bucket until we had around 5 kilos of fish. There really is nothing like feeling that tug on the line as a fish takes a nip of the squid bait. It feels even better when you pull up the line, fast and firm until you see a fish wiggling around until you grab it, pull out then hook and throw him in with the others waiting to feast on him later.

A couple of days later and we decided to take Tour C with the same fishing friends and a few English guys we had met one evening. Unfortunately this trip also came with a lot of rain but was fun nonetheless and also included a delicious lunch, this time including some small crabs to Greg's delight. This tour was more about beaches than lagoons so although the snorkelling was still very good, we do think it would have been better on a sunny day.

El Nido has been incredible; maybe even our favourite place in the Philippines. Laid back island lifestyle in a beautiful setting. A place with plenty of restaurants bars and hotels to choose from but that isn't over crowded (yet).

From here our plan was to head to Port Barton, just a little further down the coast. Known to be a similar place to El Nido but with a few less tourists. The rainy weather slowly changed our minds and so we are heading up to the north of the Philippines, to the rice terraces of Banaue.
For our lasts nights dinner we chose an Italian restaurant that caught our eye on the first night. A place that imports Italian mozzerrella and tomatoes! They had a proper pizza over and made the most incredible pasta sauce and delicious pizzas. We spent more than our usual dinner budget and even splashed out on cocktails. We could happily stay in El Nido relaxing for a long time but our long holiday is beginning to run short and so it's time to leave the beautiful beaches and islands and head to the mountains and terraces of the north.