Heading north
We woke up around 10am after an extremely long sleep, but definitely needed it. Compared to a lot of places in Europe, the check out times in these places are usually 12pm. This gives you plenty of time to either have breakfast, or a slow morning, no rush at all. For us, it allowed us to get some breakfast in before a fairly long van drive to El Nido. There was a McDonald’s just up the road, and we couldn’t pass the opportunity up to have it for breakfast. Nor did we have much time to eat, with McDonald’s we know what we want and we know it’ll come quickly. After we’d finished our grub, we returned to the hostel. Not long after we did, the van to El Nido arrived.
We were the first in the van, but we picked others up before driving to El Nido. There was just about enough room to be comfortable, though the heat threatened to give me travel sickness. It was a pretty uneventful van ride to El Nido, taking about 5 hours in total, with just 1 stop on the road. As usual, we were able to go to the toilet or get snacks, there were a few beggars too. I gave a small girl a packet of biscuits, I can’t do much, but a little is better than nothing.
El Nido
The van arrived in El Nido just before sunset, and dropped us on a random road just outside the centre. Mat and I were both peckish, so we went to a restaurant to fill up. Whilst there, we looked around for accommodation and found a decently cheap hostel quite close to us. It was more of a homestay, but it had a dorm with AC, so it was good. Though many of these places control the time the AC is in use. We booked a boat tour for tomorrow, there should be good opportunities for swimming and snorkelling.
The pair of us stayed in and chilled for the night. It takes some getting used to, the cold showers. There’s no way to alter the temperature of the water, but it’s good for cooling yourself down. All of these long bus or van journeys take it out of you, even if you nap the whole way! It appears there are occasional power cuts up here, and maybe on most islands. Hopefully the aircon doesn’t cut out for too long in the night, otherwise it’ll get uncomfortable.
