El Nido – Our Journey

Follow our journey from Port Barton onto El Nido!

My favourite place in the world is El Nido and I am finally back! As soon as we get closer to somewhere I recognised I instantly am in awe of how much El Nido has changed. I was thinking maybe my minds playing tricks on me and I don’t remember as much as I used to. Me and Olly arrive at the hotel and I wanted to go and explore to see if I am right. I cant help but to feel shocked how much everything has changed. There are so many more hotels, restaurants and generally more western looking shops. I was only here a year and a half ago, how could it of changed this much in that time?!

That evening we met up with Sasha and Simon and headed to the Outpost hostel for some food and drinks and to book our trip for the next day. This place is amazing, brand new, great food and cheap trips! I was beginning to think that change was a good thing for El Nido. Unfortunately the next day it rained all day and we postponed our island hopping trip but as we had a private boat we didn’t loose any money. We spent the day in bed, watching films and updating the blog and doing ‘Life admin’. 

Island hopping day!!

First stop was to the Big Lagoon, which our boat literally drove in and drove out as it was very busy. The boat trip then took us to Shimizu Island to do some snorkelling. The water current was so strong we thought were going to drown!

Our highlight of the day was the secret  lagoon, we arrived here later than we expected and we were the only ones here. Me and Olly became the dream team and kayaked though the cave to reach it. We stopped paddling and just floated around, amazed at how clear the water was and how blue it was. It was amazing!!!

We kayaked over to a secluded beach and of course a photo shoot broke out. This boat trip was amazing and I was instantly reminded why I loved this beautiful place so much. I am so glad Olly is here to share this with me.

The next day I demanded a beach day to top up the tan. Olly and I headed to Las Cabanas beach which was the closest one to El Nido. We spent the day chilling and swimming. As the sun was setting we headed to Beach bar to grab a bean bag and a few drinks. This is where we met Ali, Mo and Patricia. These guys had a drone and drone wars took place which was cute to watch as Olly and Mo were teaching each other about their drones. How could I take much notice with the greatest thing in the world infant of me. I came cross two puppies and instantly my day was made.

We figured out that we were all on the same ferry to Coron together and planned to see them there. The ferry was a 5 hour fast boat at 7:45 am which I wasn’t too happy about but once we got on board it actually wasn’t bad. I couldn’t even feel the fact I was on boat and passed out while Olly took photos of me 🙃

El Nido is so beautiful, but I can already see how it will slowly lose some of this beauty. The amount of tourists, new hotels and the amount of money things are costing are all examples of this. Not to mention they now have a functioning airport. El Nido is loosing it’s untouched feel already and it is due to how much the Philippines has blown up on social media lately. El Nido popularity is still undoubtable. The hotels are still booked up weeks in advance as well as it being number one spot to see here in the Philippines. Not all of it is bad, every restaurant is adamant on not using plastic straws and reducing their waste. This can only mean good things and hopefully the government won’t have to close it like they have Boracay.  

Coron is the last island we are visiting before we head back to Manila to catch our flight to Sydney. We tried to look for flights to Siargao as Olly really wanted to go surfing here. Unfortunaley Boracay has closed and everything has sky rocketed in price. Coron is also another island neither of us have visited. I enjoy going to new places much more as I don’t have any expectations or anything to compare it too. So far every place we have moved on too has seemed to top the last place. Hopefully Coron doesn’t disappoint and tops what El Nido has to offer. 

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