El Nido & great friendship

After the motorcycle saga, I did mak my way to El Nido by van and remeet with Laura, that I've meet in Sagada. But before meeting with her, I took a walk to go discover El Nido with the Italian dude and the Chinese girl. On that walk, we've meet with a German couple, which I'm now making my way to Port Barton to. I also meet with a Finnish couple who were travelling with Laura for the last two weeks! Well group chemistry with the fins, the german andd Laura was so great to we ended up spending, the six of us, four days together, breakfast to sleep we were together and did amazing things.

First off was the Tour A which is Island hoping. Really nice. Beautiful beaches, really good meal, and fun times. But most of all, great snorkeling. Christmas Eve was spent with those guys. Amazing buffet, roasted pork, chicken, beef, shrimps, squid, fish, rice, veggies somewhere for a whopping 350php! Christmas day was spent Island hoping 9 (again). Being so exhausted, on the 26th it was time to go to the beach and relax. Excellent evening listening to live music almost on the beach!

Basically, El Nido was either beach or Island hoping. Really nice for Christmas and turning my attention away from not being at home!

The last bit of El Nido was going to a beach called Papaya beach. We wanted to go to a beach that everyone talks about: 7 commando beach. So we've looked around for option how to get there. We got a quote by the agencies that was around 1500 php. Woah, I understand we are tourist but there's a limit to being ripped off. So we made our way to the Corong Corong beach where there's a ton of fisherman (with boats) and we've asked around, 600 php and we were able to negociate at 500 php. That's more like it. So in a small bangka, we've made our way to 7 commando beach but the fisherman, a really nice man, proposed that we should go to the adjacent beach. Well it was paradise. Alone on a 500 metres beach, it was perfect. It was certainly romantic for the couple, but for me it was just really nice!!! :) Me and Florian swimmed to 7 commandos beach and it was so packed with tourists. Around 100 people on this beach that wasn't really bigger than the one we were on! That was instant satisfaction. We paid less for more!

El Nido was a place of great friendships. A instant family which I spent christmas with. The British: Laura, the Fins: Joonas and Sofia and the German: Florian and Yasmin. It was amzingly brillant.

Tips for El Nido

- La Banane is a new hostel backpackers oriented. If you're travelling alone, it's the place to go.
- Friendly's Inn is a nice, quiet and clean place with affordable rooms if you're travelling with a partner
- The best place to see the sunset is at the Greenviews resort at Corong Corong beach
- There's no ATM and there's only the art cafe that will do Credit card cash advance for 8%. Bring a lot of money.
- Las Cabanas beach is really nice to go. Trycicle driver WILL rip you off to go there.
- Everything is more expensive in El Nido so buy your soap, tooth paste and so on before arriving.
- Accomodations that aren't on the beach are way cheaper.
- If you do tour A-B-C-D make sure the mask/tuba/fins are included, otherwise your tour could cost 150 php more!
- Tours: always try to go on the smaller boats. 6-9 pax.