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!