love is an island paradise (inhabited by good looking musicans)

el nido and the surrounding bacuit archipelago are the picture perfect image of an island paradise. tall limestone cliffs blanketed in lush jungle jut out of the ocean all around the little strip of beach at the northern tip of palawan where el nido lies. these tiny chunks of land dot the ocean like terrestrial constellations for as far as the eye can see. it is absolutely mesmorizing... a person could stay for years just discovering all the hidden beaches and lagoons in this tiny, miniscule fraction of the philippines. its no wonder this country holds the world record for longest coastline. but enough gloating...from the boatride experience mentioned in the previous cyber post we befriended a whole gaggle of fellow tourists including 3 canadians, a mexican mathmatician and his british girlfriend and 2 germans (naturlich). its always nice to have a group of friends when you are far from home, and these are quite the interesting bunch of pale-faced adventurers, of which there are many in the sea and sand haven that is palawan island. however, el nido has still managed to retain its charm as a small, layed back beach town, for now at least.

so in soaking up the wonder of it all we went diving a couple times and saw some more cool stuff, namely lobster, baracuda, trumpetfish, boxfish and jellyfish. one day we rented a motorcyle to check out the surrounding area, which is equally charming and full of the usual rice paddies, carabao, and smiling people. on another, we gathered a group of our newfound tourist friends to hire a boat out to the surrounding islands ("island hopping" as they call it) and it was spec-tac-u-lar and reconfirmed my belief that this really must be the most breathtakingly beautiful place in the entire world. we visited a lagoon filled with water that looked like it it had been airlifted in from a swimming pool, only less chemicaly and more salty. i couldnt even bring myself to snorkel as i was unable take my eyes off everything above the water, so i just swam around feeling very much like a water nymph in a fantasy film. in my exploring i discovered a cave that was the spitting image of the one in the little mermaid where ariel keeps her whos-its and whats-its galore (again with the disney). i of course siezed the opportunity to sing "part of that world" at the top of my lungs, much to the amusement of the germans.

later that evening, as the whole group was moving on to different destinations the next day, we decided to meet for dinner that evening at a place where there is often live music in the way of a group of boys in their early twenties who have a very good garage band of sorts with quite the repitoire, ranging from stevie wonder to niel diamond to oaisis to radiohead to bob marley and some local reggae too. they are really quite the small time rock stars. my dad and i had seen them the previous night at another restaurant and they apparently remembered me because the hand drummer had a drink sent to my table. turns out they are also friends with the dive master we had been with and one of their cousins owned the restaurant so we all hung out until way past closing hours as they fixed coctails and passed around their instruments as the waves crashed outside. the next day i had suddenly become quite the popularity queen. everyone in this town seems to be a friend or relative of one of these boys and now i couldnt go anywhere without hearing someone call, "hello, eleanor!" sometimes even people ive never seen before. did i mention i really like this town??

and since it is just as difficult to leave el nido as it is to get there, we extended our stay to 5 days in paradise instead of 3. or so we thought... on the morning of the sixth day, afters a late night of goodbyes with my new, charming philippino friends i boarded the ferry bound for the island of buswanga with a heavy heart. it was an especially bumpy ride that made the one from sabang seem like a limosine ride and about 3 hours in the boat actually turned around and started heading back to el nido. make that 6 days in paradise. just goes to show that, in the philippines, no plan is final until you set foot in your destination and even then one should be prepared for something to go awry. so then we were going to try to get the ferry out the next day and i said goodbye again to my fan club and the next morning, what do you know?? no ferry. so in a mad rush we got to the bus station and caught a bus back to puerto princesa to ensure wed at least have a good shot at making our flight back home to the states. a seventh day in paradise would have been nice, but there are really only so many times a heart can take such sad goodbyes. so we were finally on our way, or so we thought... that is until the universal unit broke. yes, that is exactly as important and difficult to fix as it sounds. but thats only if you forget how freaking tight philippinos are. 5 guys hopped of and, with winstons resting cooly between their lips, got to sawing off a piece of metal tube to replace the broken part. i mean seriously, who does that? and whats more, who could make that actually work?? well, philippinos can. miraculously, we only waited about 20 minutes and were on the road again... for about an hour, then something else started rattling. so, we slowed to a stop, out hopped the smoking men, down dropped a piece of rope and they just tied up whatever it was that was making the ruckus and we made it all the way to puerto princesa. incredible. at the risk of sounding redundant, i love this country!

more pictures @ www.flickr.com/ricks_art

i think im in love... palawan has to be the most beautiful place in the entire world. i know, i know... so says the girl of the two week crush, but really... i think its for real this time! after making yet another quick getaway from yet another bustling city we settled into the sleepy seaside village of Sabang where the only accommodations are flushtoiletless, hotwaterless, electricityless (except between the hours of 6pm and 10pm) and, thus, fabulous. the little stilted cottages sit right on the sand of a little hidden cove with the best surf we've seen since our arrival, which we of course immediately bounded into leaving our packs and clothing in two parallel trails along the way. on our first (and only) full day we breakfasted on fried egg and tasty bread (have no idea how to discern it from other bread, but it is, in fact, incredibly tasty) and set out into the jungle to find The Underground River. it is the longest underground river in the world measuring 8km from the place it dips down beneath the land to where it empties into the China Sea. 'tis quite the natural phenomenon and really the only reason sabang finds itself between the covers of a lonely planet at all. actually, even the trail to get there is pretty phenomenal... it weaves from beach to jungle to beach to jungle again and you alternate between gazing up at towering limestone cliffs from teal blue waters to climbing up those towering cliffs and gazing down at the nice clear waters. i tend to prefer to former, but, hey, variety is the spice of life, or so i kept telling myself as i felt rivers of sweat trickling (or rather pouring) down my back. and speaking of rivers... this one was well worth the hike (on foot and otherwise) and incredibly fascinating in that spooky, plunging into the pitch-black unknown kind of way. after getting suited up in neon life vests and bright green helmets, all the tourists must pile into a banca to be slowly rowed into the cave that marks the mouth of the river. ominous looking stalactites and mites jutted out all around us and thousands upon thousands of bats lined the cave's ceiling in their inverted slumbers, so close at times that i could even make out their tiny little faces, which were, in fact, surprisingly adorable. other than the live bats it was actually very much like being on the pirates of the caribbean ride. who would have thought the philippines would be so much like disneyland?
but it only got better from there... the next day we woke before the sun (and electricity) to board a banca (an outrigger canoe that can squishily and splashily hold 14 people, plus the 4 man crew) bound for el nido. although bumpy, wet and long the banca is thus far my favorite means of travel, mainly because you get to be outside all day, not to mention on the water, and thus have a front row showing of the philippine coastline. and you know, an archipelago really doesnt feel like an archipelago until your sitting out in the middle of the ocean watching little chunks of land wizz (ok, not quite wizz) past as you glide (bounce) over glassy to teal to aqua blue back to teal again waters. positively memorizing... i almost could have spent another ten hours on that boat. almost. but, as it were, the sun was beginning to set and all 14 of us were darned glad to catch a glimpse of el nido as we rounded what we'd lovingly dubbed "desperation point."

big fish

welp my first night on the island of palawan was nothing if not an interesting one. it started off in the port city of puerto princesa with just the pops and myself enjoying two much deserved san miguels outside our hotel room after our long voyage from malaybalay (that's one three hour bus ride, one overnight ferry, two plane flights, three taxi rides and two tricycle rides to be exact - but that's another story). seated at the table a few feet away from us was a group of boisterous, big-bellied philippino men, the biggest bellied of whom kept sending glances and friendly nods in my direction. and wouldn't you know it, we had nearly finished our beverages when, as if by some sort of divine intervention, the waiter appeared and palced two fresh cold ones in their stead. as we gazed up at him with faces all adrawn with pleased perplexion he informed us that they were compliments of "Mr. Joey" and nodded in the direction of the biggest belly who grinned broadly and raised his glass and Malboro cigarette to us. he waved us over to their table and who do these men turn out to be but a few of the heavyweights in philippine politics, pun intended. we had in attendace the chief of police, the county auditor, a cargo line owner, and Mr. Joey the deputy mayor of manila, among others. after chatting for the better part of an hour they invited us to dinner at the home of the auditor. now, a homemade dinner with the upper crust of the philippines, that's just not the kind of thing a person can refuse, so we hopped into their escalade-esk vehicle (a far cry from the jeepnies and tricycles to which we've become accustomed) and headed for the outskirts of the city. the auditor and his quiet wife have a lovely home where they raise fighting cocks and banana trees and had prepared a huge spread on their front porch positivly brimming with broad, steaming dishes. there were two huge maya maya fish (i dunno, its delicious), beef stew, fried pork, pickled papaya and naturally lots of rice (and bananas). really nothing all that exciting or out of the ordinary happened, in fact we rather ate and ran, but when you are thousands of miles from your home and every article of clothing you have smells like a stinky foot its quite thrilling to dine with royalty (or close enought to it).

ferries, fotos and filippino families, oh my!

all aboard the inter-island express! after one last day a good diving, but spotty weather we decided to move on from sleezetown, philippines and try our luck further south on the island of mindinao, and this time we traveled by sea. lucky for us in-ferry entertainment is much more interesting than its in-flight counterpart. we were graced with a performance by a live 3-piece band. the group consisted of a middle-aged man with a ponytail on the keyboard/synthesizer and two ladies on vocals clad in blouses with sheer tummies doing passionate renditions of smooth rock karaoke hits. however, amusement quickly gave way to bleeding eardrums and we fled the dining area for our bunks on the lower deck. but alas, the voices and microphone reverberations carried swiftly over the open sea and right onto the philippino-sized mat onto which i was trying to make comfortable my american-sized body (this is no small feat, i assure you). after tossing and turning for several hours i awoke to the sun rising over the open ocean and our island destination approaching on the horizon. as we got close to port a throng of banca's (catamaran canoes) swept toward us. my dad and i stood memorized watching them from the railing, wondering what in the world they could be doing. they came right up to the side of the ship, grown men with small children sitting in the front and they were all yelling something up to us. it wasn't until someone beside us dropped a coin over board and the nearest boy dove into the water to retrieve it that we realized they were begging. once off the boat we boarded a bus bound for the town of malaybalay where my dad lived with his family for 14 years. about three hours, three canyons, one banana plantation later (fun fact: dole and del monte plantation security guards are licensed to kill. where one applies for such a liscence i dont know, but i wasnt too inclined to find out.) we arrived at bethel baptist hospital compound, the establishment my grandparents (with the help of a handful of others) built up from the ground over 50 years ago. immediately upon arrival we were treated as honored guests. a woman named lilet dragged us into every room and office in the hospital to give us a theatrical introduction, complete with full gesticulation, to every nurse, doctor, accountant, receptionist and passerby. never have i ever been hugged and kissed and squeezed and stroked so much. afterward we were shown to the guesthouse where we would be staying, which turned out to be none other than the very house where my family had lived for all those years, a very nice surprise. i slept in the room where my dear aunt susie had taken running leaps onto her bed as the only defense from the torments of her incorrigible brothers. however, this was not until after i walked in on four of the most enormous cockroaches i have ever seen (come to think of it they may in fact have been extraterrestrials) one of which was cozily nestled into the bristles of my toothbrush. i did not scream, i was too shocked and awed. i calmly called for my father who frightened them back into the walls and began brushing my teeth with cockroach saliva, or some other form of excretion i'd prefer not to think about. whatever it was im sure its full of wonderful nutritional value, those extraterrestrials are so advanced.

PS I have decided to call off my tally in the scrimage against my tiny tropical nemises. their hits are now well into the thirties and i've managed to snuff out only four of them. what can i say... im a lover, not a fighter.

big country, little island.

battle update... vermin: 24, eleanor: 1
(life is getting mighty itchy)

you know, when you are on a 9 hour bus ride (with the help of a little over the counter Valium - gotta love 3rd world countries) followed by two 2 hour flights just to get to the paradise island of Cebu this sure doesn't feel like a small country. speaking of flying and the related airport baggage claim areas, i sidenote: impatience in the baggage claim area is, indeed, an international affliction. here, too, the people rush forward to form an impenetrable wall around the conveyor belt before it even starts moving and without the foggiest inclination as to whether their bag will come about first or last, or ever for that matter. thus, it becomes impossible for the less pushy of the bunch (ahem... moi) to spot their bag until it has already flown by, back into the never reaches of the airport's belly. come on people, those big ol' hunks of grey matter lumbering over our shoulders aren't just there to give us nicely defined neck muscles. sheesh.

anyway, when we finally did manage to retrieve our luggage and get outside the airport to embrace the sun and sand part of our vaccation we stepped into the middle of a downpour. apparently the dry season isnt quite as dry as we'd hoped. but no matter, it only lasted a few hours and the rain did paint quite a nice picture on the streets of cebu city... school age girls linked at the elbow dashing about in drenched uniforms, small children playing in the water cascading down from the drainpipes, and young boys beside their equally ripped grandfathers leaning shirtless with arms folded beneath store aunings staring vacantly into the streets. cant say i was sad to see it stop the next day, though, and we even had time to get in a snorkel and a dive afterward and, since the good weather held for the most part, one more of each the next day. so far we have seen a sea turtle, a sea snake, clownfish living in a aneneme, lots of yellowstripped fairy basslets (my new favorite fish), a couple dragon fish and plethora of irridescent coral and other fishes. id kindof forgotten how awesome the colors are down where its wetter, under the sea. right up my alley in the color department, really. made me wish i had a hot pink wet suit... i think i am going into spandex withdrawals. the little dive town where we're staying, moalboal, is a bit of a sunburned sleezeball tourist trap. lots of washed up middle aged dude bros picking up on pretty philippino women. it's painful to watch really. however, tonight we did come a across a diamond in the ruff. he's not as hot as aladin, but he is a chubby, red-faced german in his late fifties, which makes him an automatic gem in my book. his name is peter and my dad and i wandered into his restaurant only to wander out again 3 hours later full of homemade sourkraut, wurst, beer and a shot of brandy. he talked and talked about the old country and politics and his life story and made me blush about 20 times with all his flattery. and if that werent enough, he threw in a palm reading for free. peter says "ahh ja, you arrre a verrry strong voman und du vill have maany men try und tie you down, BUT you vill never be caught. oh, ah, vait. ok, you vill have a little bit love. but it vill not last long." great, peter. thanks. anyway, what does he know? i doubt he could even see my palm after the river of beer his philippino girlfriend (of course) had kept flowing past him all night. but, regardless of my disappointing love forecast, it was a very interesting evening. so thank you Peter, you big, sweet, crazy german man, you.

8th Wonder of the World... Check.

First off, it has been brought to my attention that i have misspelled the title of this here internet diary. And to that i say that as this is not the first time i have ever been known to get creative with my spelling, nor will it likely be the last, perhaps we should all just chalk these "mistakes" up as privy to one of my more endearing eccentricities and remember the wise words of Mr. Mark Twain who once said, "I don't give a damn for a man [or woman] who can only spell a word one way." Amen Samuel, amen.

That said...

Deep breath in through the nose and "ahhh..." That is my sigh of contentedness. I am ever so glad to be out of Manila. Baguio, although it is still a rather large city, is much more pleasnat and approachable than the aforementioned, making the couple days we spent there very much enjoyable, indeed. There is a large park in the town center, a ginormormous "people's market" (think farmers market with more raw meat and fish) and lots more of that wonderful, humidity-bred foliage. The only slightly unpleasant part is that what, as for usual, will likely be a loosing battle with the local vermin has now officially begun. Thus far, the score is insects/aracnids 3, eleanor 0.
From Baguio we took a 6 hour bus ride to Sagada, which is a little town even more up in the mountains en route to the famous rice terraces. It didn't seem like the grueling ride daddy remembered from his childhood, not until about hour four that is. For that is the point at which we passed into the mountain provence, the land where pavement gives way to dirt/mud and what passes for a bigde is, to us westerners, really just a couple planks of wood placed precariously across a cavernous revene. But, cheating death yet again, we made it safely to our guesthouse and traipsed around the town and along narrow little philippino sized paths that wound us through the neighborhood (as far as i could tell there was only one). In the evening i treated myself a "shower." By "shower" i mean that i went into the bathroom (where the toilet is), stripped off my clothes and set to diluting boiling water in a kettle with cold water from the sink into a giant ladle which i then poured onto myself, trying not to get too much on the toilet seat.
The next day i awoke feeling clean from my "shower" and ready to hop on a Jeepney bound for Banaue, home of the most expansive rice terraces. To say that it was bumpy would be and understatement. It was definetly not a ride for the faint of stomach or bottom, and yesterday, to my great misfortune, i was representing the former. Whether it was due to the sip of calamance juice i'd had the day before ( that's philippino limeade more or less, but yummier) or my unsightly habit of biting my fingernails no matter what dangerously unsanitary hand rails or sink knobs they may have touched, my tummy was definetly not pleased with me. I harrnessed all the self motivating thoughts of mind over matter (or in this case stomach contents) i could muster and made it all the way to the hotel bed where i remained in a supine position for the next 16 hours. And, after a brief but effective rendevoux with the toilet around hour 4, i woke up almost as good as new in the morning. Vacine, shmakcine, i say! Foreign infectious diseases are no match for my superior cognative prowess. So, after a modest half-eaten breakfast of oatmeal (i wasn't quite ready to tempt the up-chuck gods with garlic rice and salty fish so soon) i hoped onto a motorcycle behind a 22-year-old rice farmer, with dad in the side thingy, and headed out to behold the magestic and mystifying rice terraces (heavy on the myst.. mist). To try and describe them more would be pointless, for i cannt do them justice. I suppose that's the way it goes with wonders of the world, you've just got to get out and see them yourself.

Greetings from the future.

Yes, that's right folks, i am writing to you from tomorrow and if your tomorrow is anything like my today let me tell you, its gonna be interesting. After defeating all previously held logical perceptions of time and space by catapulting through two whole days in a matter of only 16 hours my dad and i arrived in Manila at the sunless hour of 4am. In spite of the very wee time of day, the second we set foot on Philippine airplane ramp i had the oh so tropical sensation of being slapped in the face with a damp washcloth. I have to admit, there is something somewhat satisfying about gulping in one's air supply instead of merely breathing it. After making it to the missionary guest house where we are staying the night and meeting Nene (the excitable lady of the house whose grin as big as she is tiny) we decided to bypass the whole sleeping bit, which i've come to view as highly overrated anyway... who was it that said, "I'll have plenty of time to sleep when I'm dead?" Anyway, i digress. By 9am we were out on the streets of Manila, which like any other big city in a poor country is, in a word, overwhelming. The thing is, on top of having that general slightly-frazzled-upon-arriving-in-a-new-country feeling, one is then immediately bombarded by the incessant preemptive honking of the taxi drivers, the weight of nearly tangible pollution, accented by the gut-wrenching conglomeration of unpleasant smells that arise from too many people with not enough resources all crammed together in the same forsaken space, one encounter with an impressively/disturbingly insistent and barely pubescent looking Philippino who was tougher to shake than... something very difficult to shake, and a death defying ride in a Jeepney, which (i know this sounds corny) reminded me exactly of Mr. Toad's Wild Ride at Disneyland, but more specifically the sensation that no matter how much that stupid wheel is turned and/or spun the vehicle continues to swerve down a perilous course all its own until somehow, against all odds, the ride ends abruptly, without incident. So think me lily-livered if you will, but after one day in this chaos i am glad i'm gettin' out of the big city and headin' for the sticks (and sand and rice terraces). That said, i'd rather end the first day, no, uberday of my travels on a positive note, so here we go...
Three things i like about Manila:
1) The people. Everyone i've talked to (aside from danny the unshakable) has been extremely polite and friendly and kind and helpful. Philippinos never point and i don't think i've heard a single person yell yet.
2) The greenery. The clammy weather makes it nearly impossible for things not to grow here and encourages large, lush trees and exotic foliage to burst from even the most unlikely spots, filling every possible nook and cranny of an otherwise tin and concrete jungle.
3) Jeepney's. Aforementioned story aside, these things are actually very awesome modes of public transportation. They are old American army Jeeps customized with brightly colored paint and embossed metal decorations and have been stretched (i assume with some sort of magic stretching device) to be able to hold two longways benches seating up to 14 people. Not to mention that they are dirt cheap (20 cents a head), and they are EVERYWHERE, can't miss 'em.

So, now, with my glass once again in its proper half-full state and the sun finally tucked away on ya'll's (?) side of the world, i am going to hit the shower and then the hay, two things i've been putting off all day, while i was dreaming of the bay, and my friends jay and may, with whom i like to play, and make things out of clay...yep, i'd say that about sums it up.