Vacation – El Nido, Philippines
A fellow CR expat family booked a vacation to El Nido, Palawan in the Philippines the first weekend in May. They invited others to join them for the three-day weekend get-away. El Nido has been on our list of places to visit, so we quickly agreed to join and booked our tickets. We stayed at Apulit Island in El Nido and had our own bungalow over the coral reef, with private stairs in the back leading right to the water. We had to take an hour plane ride to get to El Nido. Then a two hour car ride to the boat port. And then another hour or so on a boat to get to Apulit island. It was a lot of traveling before we got to enjoy the island.
For the El Nido resorts there is a private airport terminal. We are ready to go relax and play with friends.
Part of the Palawan island chain as seen from the plane…El Nido is there somewhere.
The middle cottage is where we stayed at Apulit.
The kids are ready for an adventure. We did all enjoyed a private island hopping tour.
Snorkeling with fish was fun, but the kids really liked jumping off the boat while it was anchored.
We hired a nanny to help watch Blake so Tia could snorkel and play. The nanny was not going to let Blake get sunburned!
During our private island hopping tour, we also had our own private picnic lunch on a deserted island. They brought the resort accommodations and food to us!
The second day we spent time at the resort. We had fun at the beach.
Many hours were spent in the pool playing all sorts of swimming games.
We did some paddle boarding and kayaking as well.
We saw some local wildlife. This monitor lizard was very near our table during breakfast…and Matt may have tried to capture it (on several occasions).
Below one of the cottages we saw a stingray hanging out in the morning.
Walking back from breakfast, we saw a baby black tip reef shark in the shallow waters near the cottage.
While traveling to return to Manila, to remind us that we are in the Philippines, we had to walk through three boats in order to get to the dock where our van was waiting for us. Luckily no one fell in the water.
More photo of El Nido here.
