Triumph and Failure in Palawan Part Two: El Nido

The first half of my Palawan adventure had elicited mixed results, but I left Puerto Princesa finally feeling like I’d turned a corner, thanks in no small part to the sociable atmosphere at 100% Café Moto. After over two weeks of off-the-beaten-path travelling, it had been reassuring to meet other travellers and reacquaint myself with the rhythms of conversation – luckily this was a trend that was set to continue in El Nido.

I’d heard horror stories about the gruelling five-to-six-hour drive to El Nido on terrible roads, stuffed into the back of a van without air conditioning, and swathed in travellers’ backpacks. So, I opted to pay a couple of hundred pesos extra for the Cherry Bus, which turned out to be an incredibly civilised affair. With air conditioning, onboard movies and reclining seats, I arrived in El Nido feeling refreshed and hopped straight in a tuk tuk to my beachfront hostel Outpost.

The sunset view of the bay from Outpost Hostel

The sun was just winding down as I arrived (to an endearing chorus of “Welcome home!” from the hostel staff) so I grabbed an iced coffee and watched the sunset from the balcony. The entire bay is scattered with rugged off-shore islands, all of which were bathed in a warm orange light, filtered through a smattering of clouds. It was absolutely breath-taking and quite probably the most beautiful view I have ever had the pleasure of witnessing. The photos below just don’t do it justice.

Beach Hopping

I was up early the next morning and watched the daily departure of boats heading out for the itinerated island-hopping tours. Along with a few travellers I had met the previous evening, I’d decided to forgo the obligatory island hopping tour and rent a scooter to check out some of the nearby beaches, famed for their beauty. Not quite trusting my own scooter skills yet, I hopped on the back, and we made our way out to Nacpan Beach, widely considered El Nido’s most beautiful beach.

Nacpan Beach looking like something out of a holiday brochure

And for good reason. With 4km of pristine white sand, gentle waves, and framed by an unbroken border of palm trees, Nacpan is the archetypal paradisiacal beach that you’ve seen a thousand times on the front of glossy travel brochures. It just doesn’t seem real. We enjoyed several hours there with frequent dips in the warm ocean, eating freshly cooked vegetarian dishes and drinking from coconuts before backtracking down the coast to Lio Beach.

Lio Beach is a whole different beast but just as beautiful, and I think I actually preferred it to Nacpan. It’s accessible via a boardwalk that winds itself through the forest, making for an exhilarating scooter ride. On the whole, it’s much more dramatic, with crashing waves that are perfect for surfing, and a pier that juts out into the ocean. There’s also nothing quite like standing in the water and watching aeroplanes pass mere dozens of metres above your head to land just beyond the treeline at El Nido Airport.

Continuing our tour of El Nido’s most spectacular beaches, we wanted to find somewhere to watch the sunset, and we settled on Las Cabañas Beach at the other side of town. Culminating in a small peninsular, it offers 270° views of the bay where you can jostle with the other tourists to watch the sun set behind the picturesque Depeldet Island. With plenty of bars and restaurants blaring music and putting on light shows, it’s more akin to Bali than what you might expect from the lesser-visited Philippines, but the view is worth the boisterous company.

Island Hopping

On day two I put my tourism snobbery aside and joined one of the island-hopping tours, which I had been reliably informed was the only one worth doing, since it visited the aptly named Big Lagoon. Our guides set the tone almost as soon as the engine had roared into life by handing out cups of rum and pineapple juice – luckily few passengers took them up on the offer.

Our first stop of the day was a snorkelling spot, and here’s where that uniquely Filipino brand of ‘fast tourism’ comes into play again because our guides simply handed us some snorkels and left us to our own devices with little preamble. A few years ago, I was lucky enough to take part in a snorkelling tour on Thailand’s Ko Tao island and it was absolutely fantastic. There were multiple marine biologists onboard who explained what we might see, gave us lots of information about each species and were happy to answer questions. They even got in the water with us to help us find specific species we might be looking for. Today there was none of that, aside from a quick reminder to please let the staff know if we’re stung by any of the three poisonous species that inhabit these waters.

The snorkelling was decent though not spectacular. Much of the reef was dead and it would have been nice to have known what we were looking at, but I do think there’s value in witnessing the impacts of climate change and human pollution, both of which are a huge problem for Palawan’s coral reefs.

Stop two was the much-famed Big Lagoon and, honestly, I would have been more than satisfied if this was the only stop on the tour. The boat moored offshore at Miniloc Island and we all paired off into kayaks, heading for a fissure in the rocky palisade that guards the island. Once through, we followed a narrow channel before it opened up into a stunning lagoon, azure waters encircled by the jagged limestone spire rocks that are characteristic of the Philippines and look like the iron throne from A Song of Ice and Fire.

Enjoying a well-earned rest and soaking up the beauty of Big Lagoon

With crystal clear waters over a sandy white carpet, dense mangroves, and limestone tunnels through which we could paddle, we spent an hour exploring the lagoon, each turn we took eliciting gasps of disbelief. I also have to applaud the Filipino authorities for not allowing motorised vehicles inside the lagoon, as it would be so easy to rake in big tourist dollars to the detriment of the ecology and serenity within the lagoon. If you get the chance, this is, in my opinion, by far the best thing to do in El Nido. As far as I’m aware, you can’t access the lagoon yourself unless you’re prepared to pay for a private boat, so book onto the Island Hopping Tour A to witness this absolute worldclass wonder.

These dudes were squaring up to each other over a pair of highly coveted flipflops

There were a few snorkelling spots and beach stops left to go throughout the day, but they all paled in comparison to the spectacle of Big Lagoon. The only other highlight came when we stopped on a beach for lunch and were joined by half a dozen large monitor lizards who seemed interested in our leftovers. I was slightly disappointed that, not only were our guides unable to tell us that they were monitor lizards, they were more interested in chasing them down the beach for sport than letting us observe them.

As the sun headed for the waves, our boat made its way back to shore and I found my way to bed as I had a very early start the next day.

Sunrise Scrambling

El Nido is dominated by a towering limestone cliff that looms over the town, a dominating presence and stark contrast to the serene beauty of the bay. It’s crowned by those vicious limestone spires I mentioned earlier, and I had heard that it was possible to scramble to the summit – Taraw Peak - to watch the sunrise. This is something that has to be done inconspicuously because it’s technically illegal following accidents involving tourists. So here I was at 4.15am, standing in El Nido’s shadowy backstreets, arguing with a man who spoke little English and trying to impress on him that he was not the person I had agreed to meet for my illicit climb.

Finally conceding that Filipino tourism tends to run on a network of fixers and that they rarely give you all the information you might need or expect, I went against my better judgement and followed the man. He led me through a warren of alleyways deep into the shanty town and just as my anxiety was about to get the better of me, he ducked into a house. The living room had been converted into a crude basecamp and was littered with helmets, gloves, flashlights and, most reassuringly, three German tourists nervously getting geared up.

After donning our gear, we hopped the fence at the back of the shanty town that had been erected to prevent access to Taraw Peak, and almost immediately began climbing. It was unlike anything I’ve ever climbed, those jagged spires a feature of the rock even at the bottom of the wall so that it was akin to walking across the tips of a field of spears, albeit with exceptional handholds. Even in the pitch black of morning, the humidity was stifling and I soon found that everything I was wearing was completely drenched with sweat as I marvelled at the audacity of the guides to bring inexperienced hikers up what was, in places, relatively challenging free soloing.

Through another of the guides, I learnt that my wizened old guide had been raised as a collector or edible bird’s nests – the nests that are made from the spit of swallows and considered a delicacy in Chinese cooking. He had been taught to find and collect them by his father and spent most of his life selling them on to buyers who in turn sold them for an eye-watering profit. These days he makes his money guiding idiot tourists up death defying scrambles in the middle of the night wearing nothing on his feet but a pair of tatty flip flops.

Honing my free solo skills on Taraw Peak

After 45 minutes of hair-raising scrambling, we arrived at the peak where the pitch black night was starting to fade to a dusty grey. “Be careful of that hole,” one of our guides said casually, gesturing to a crevice in the rock a couple of feet to my right, “If you fall in there, we won’t know whether you’re alive or dead.” I shone my torch down and noted that I couldn’t see the bottom.

The sun slowly began to illuminate the bay far below us, a fleet of boats bobbing offshore like a centurion of soldiers. We could see for miles, hills rolling down to the shore in all directions and islands adorning the coastline. True to form, our guides were more interested in taking photos of us hanging precariously from rocky ledges than allowing us to enjoy the sunrise, but I’ve never needed much encouragement to dangle myself over the edge of a cliff, so I was happy to oblige.

By the time my feet were solidly back on terra firma, it was barely 7.30am and I had the whole day ahead of me. I wanted to hire a kayak and paddle myself across the bay to Paradise Beach on neighbouring Cadlao Island but, in a rare display of Filipino concern for health and safety, none of the rental companies were leasing their kayaks, deeming the water too rough for a crossing. I looked across what I considered to be a fairly calm bay and remembered battling large waves and dicing with speedboats who showed no regard for my safety several years earlier when I rented a kayak to explore the coastal islands of Krabi in Thailand. It’s interesting how, in some ways, Filipino tourism standards are lagging behind and in others they’re striding ahead of their peers.

The dreamcatcher overlooking El Nido town and bay

At a loss for things to do, I made the slightly counterintuitive decision to check out the El Nido Canopy Walk, a much more sanitised tour of the Taraw Peak that operates at only a third of its height, complete with safety harness and guard rails. It’s a series of suspended walkways threaded through the cliffs featuring a variety of – you guessed it – photo ops from viewing decks and within ‘dream catchers’ (see the photo above). This would no doubt make for a great family activity, especially if you have young children, but if you’ve just spent the morning evading death as you cling to the cliff face for dear life, needless to say it’s somewhat of a comedown.

I wrapped up my tour of El Nido with the discovery of Taste El Nido, a 100% plant-based café that I dearly wish I’d found much earlier during my visit. Their food is incredible, and I enjoyed a tempeh dish marinaded in coconut and mushrooms, as well as a banoffee yoghurt pot for dessert. A perfect way to see me off to the El Nido airport and on to my next adventure…