El Nido, Palawan - Philippines

This is the last island that we spent time on in the Philippines. SO glad we went here. What a beautiful island. It reminded me a bit of Southern Thailand. We chose to spend most of our time in El Nido which was a CRAZY 5 hour van ride from the airport which we shared with 4 guys from London and another guy from South Africa. It was nice to have some other company. Super nice guys. We ended up running into all of them a couple other times while we were in El Nido. Did I say how beautiful and how much I loved it there? Yeah... I did. This post will be a picture overload. Sorry. Not sorry.

We went scuba diving. Two dives in two different spots. BEAUTIFUL tropical fish. My favorite was seeing two lion fish. Those fish are nuts... and super beautiful. I tried to get close... but not too close. I don't think those fish are friendly. Super beautiful and fun dives. Glad we went. It was just Allison and I, this nice girl from Canada and our dive master. Always love it when I sign up to dive and nobody or hardly anyone else is on the dive. They also served us a yummy lunch on the beach in between dives... you  have to wait an hour before you dive again... might as well eat some lunch and enjoy the beautiful beaches.

While we were there we found out that we were finally on the side of the island to see the sunset (instead of the sunrise like we had previously been getting). We had heard that the Republica Bar was the best place in El Nido to watch the sunset. So we headed to the bar to grab a soda and watch the sunset. Because we had heard this was the best place to watch the sunset... I thought it would be crowded. It wasn't at all. Maybe we were let in on a secret. So glad we were... it was worth it. It was an AMAZING place to watch the sunset. We sat there in awe as the sky and water turned different colors and got more beautiful as time passed. Ian even claimed it one of his top favorite places/ in the world. That is a strong statement (though he hasn't been to as many places as I have).

On another day, we did an island hoping tour. The Philippines is made up of thousands of islands. Around Palawan there are tons of little islands. So for an entire day, we got a boat with a crew to take around just the 4 of us (not sure how we worked that out, but I loved it) and they took us to all the prettiest islands. At each spot we could snorkel and they provided the equipment for that... although I wish they would have warned us about the snorkeling at Helicopter island... I was getting little stings by lots of plankton. Just never know what is in those tropical waters. They took us to hidden lagoons and hidden beaches. Some where you had to swim through a little cave to find the hidden lagoon or beach. Every stop was awesome.

In the middle of our tour they stopped at a secluded beach... so we were away from the crowds and made us lunch. They lunch was almost all seafood and was SOOO good. It was cooked on the boat and served to us on the beach. I felt like I was in heaven. Their mango's in the Philippines were to die for they were so good.

One of our stops Allison and I climbed up the sharp rocks to get the most beautiful view.

There were so many great days on this trip, but I think this was one of my favorites. I could never get over how beautiful it was and how much I loved being there.