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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."