El Nido, Palawan

Palawan is the westernmost island of the Philippines. El Nido sits near the north end of the island on the west coast. Just offshore are 45 islets of various sizes (Bacuit Archipelago) made of karst/limestone that reminded us of the Tsingy in Madagascar -

Before I talk much about the karst islands and touring them, I want to share where we stayed and our arrival. The next picture taken from the prop plane wasn’t very good, but you can get the idea of the scattered islands -

We hired this tricycle (which barely held our bags and ourselves)…

… to take us to our beach hotel -

view from our front porch

The 3 night stay here was our vacation from our dive vacation. :)

The next picture shows better what the inside of a tricycle looks like -

On our first morning, we were very lucky to grab a beachside view with our breakfast -

I heard loud chatter in the trees above our room and found the endemic Palawan Hornbill -

There are boats everywhere…

… ready to take tourists out on tours of the islands. Interestingly, all tour companies offer the same set of tours - Tour A, B, C or D, or a combination thereof. Each tour offers different highlights, and you can opt for a traditional boat with outriggers, that will take you and 20 of your closest friends on a day long excursion to see 5 or 6 sights. Or you can do as we did and hire a private speedboat that will combine the sights of 2 tours, and try to avoid the crowds as much as possible.

We had a beautifully sunny day for our cruise…

… and we were quickly introduced to the karst making up the islands, and the beautiful beaches they held.

Our first stop was to Big Lagoon, sharing with about 20-30 other kayaks…

… but there was plenty of room for everyone -

The color contrasts of the water, sky and rock were quite beautiful -

As we headed out of Big Lagoon, we were shocked to see that many more boats had come in -

I thought the rock formation in front of us looked like a Frogfish with its mouth open

Next up was Secret Lagoon, where you had to crawl through a hole in the rock to reach it -

It was really pretty inside, and I was very happy that our guide got us there early…

… before all the crowds lined up waiting to get in -

At our next destination, Secret Beach, the boat dropped us off in deep water and we had to swim through that opening in the rock that you can see as a bright spot in the center of the following picture, just behind the two snorkelers.

I jumped off and made my way there, only to remember belatedly that I had forgotten my underwater camera on the boat! It was a really pretty beach, but I don’t have photographic evidence of it. Sorry. Here is a close-up of the swim-through entrance -

The tourist industry here really has a thing for concealed treasures, as our next stop was to Hidden Beach. The boat dropped you off and you waded in to…

… a nice broad beach, where apparently a season of “Survivor” was filmed. Our guide proudly had us keep wading around a corner to find what we dubbed the “super secret beach” -

I had forgotten to mention that we stopped to snorkel near Shimizu Island…

… but it was completely unimpressive, so enough said.

Our guide took us to a quiet little beach that the other tour boats don’t use…

… where we had a private lunch with peace and quiet -

As we went by Helicopter Island, we were offered another snorkeling episode, but we declined. The island is so named as it is supposed to resemble a helicopter, but I personally thought it looked like the Moai statues on Easter Island -

We finished up early, as we didn’t spend the hours snorkeling or beach walking/lounging, so we got to visit Cadlao Lagoon (which isn’t included in the set tours we had booked) -

I thought these were the most impressive karst formations that we saw

We then headed back to El Nido…

… and relaxed with a gorgeous sunset.