Palawan Adventure! [Episode 3] #philippines

This is the third entry of an attempt to a travel log i started when i was young and life promised.

It sounds harsh but actually, it reflects the transition and the shock of a young couple used to a tiny Paris apartment, the noise and the fast city life, upon meeting the wonderful simple life that is still possible to live in this shambling world. Please bear with us and our citadine bad ways as we transition into real human beings.

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Meet the STARS of this adventure

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The place itself was very nice, white sand beach, a nice house reef for snorkeling or diving, the room was really big and comfy, the staff more than helpful and serviceable, the buffet food was good and varied and in overall the promise of paradise was fulfilled. But, it is not worth the 100 $ /day /person, let alone the normal rate for non divers… Maldives is way better and you pay half of that.

So US dollars and bad feelings aside, we proceed to do our best to enjoy the facilities. Sun bathing, snorkeling on the house reef, general laziness… Sounds like the way of life to me. To be honest the first thing we did was taking a long, long shower… remember by now we are already on the 13th and we have been traveling since the 11th in the early morning.

Shower taken, smelling good, jump on the bed to test it, fiddle with the air conditioning, explore the room balcony and declare it the smoking area… All those important things done, we start searching for the famous Palawan scorpion, one of the biggest species in the planet, but to our relief and deception there is none to be seen, Direction to the beach for that sun bath, snorkeling, laziness…

After roasting in the sun for a few hours we go to the dive shop, where I must say sadly we are given higher prices than those Dirk informed us, but since he had been really helpful we decide what the hell and go for it, so the fun seems to start (after all this was supposed to be a Dive holiday)

But my sinus had a different plan, due to the hot humidity and all the planes taken lately after a snorkel descent to 6 meters my nose blocks, my sinus hurt and I start displaying all the symptoms of a nasty cold. So no diving for me today… I fool around the slowest internet connection on hearth and start getting an interest in the design of the Banka boats, which I discover are what is known as an outrigger ship, the Pilipino usually extend the deck by adding some planks on top of the beams that support the outrigger, and then further out a netting mesh presumably to hold objects of passengers falling off.

The outrigger ads stability to what is basically a thin and elongated, short keel vessel, just a bit more of what we call a canoe, the gunwales are reinforced and the outrigger 3 beams sit on the gunwales and held tied to the center beam of the hull (whatever the maritime term for it is) the pontoons are just 3 or 4 thick bamboo trunks, the hull possess 3 masts or twin masts that help rigging the outrigger with ropes as tension wires.

I must say most of my fascination is because it makes for an inexpensive dive boat which is sea worthy also it can be a good idea as a fishing boat both for artisan fishers or leisure. I find strange that the design did not permeate during the Colony from Asia to South America as there must have been some exchanges after all both the Philippines and most of South America was a Spaniard colony…

Well anyway, that day Elisabeth dived and I didn’t, she was elated happy and I was feeling sicker… So off I went in search of the resort doctor which provided some magical pills and next day I was feeling better.

I am forgetting to mention Emily, the Honk Kong girl, very extroverted, social, talkative, self assured, diver and friendly who treated her boyfriend Erik like a toy, the typical image of a spoiled Barbie girl always thinking of having fun. She wanted to share a boat dive which was very expensive unless taken in groups, so we spoke a bit on the subject and agreed to dive together, thing that never happened because she could not make her mind about what dive she wanted to participate.

Later that day the resort invites us to the sunset cruise, a courtesy cruise on a boat around the island while the sun hides on the horizon. It was really nice and the highlight of it was the awakening of about a million bats, there you are imagining your normal average bat… Don’t! Those were batman on steroids; indeed I am sure the bat cave is in that island somewhere

So the 14th starts, now 4 days into our holiday and since the magic pills seem to have cleared my nose and I am feeling better we decide, after breakfast to risk another snorkeling session to see if I can equalize. On the way to the beach we need to traverse about half f the island, and while going in front of a lagoon we see what looks like huge snake on the water, we stop in amazement, patting pockets for the camera (which lays forgotten in the room) and mesmerized by the size of what we see we slowly start making the shape of 2 huge lizards, playfully attacking each other in a tangle of tails and heads, they might not have been as big as a Komodo Dragon, but were big enough, I didn’t want to risk approaching for fear of scaring them or losing a limb, but they must have been a meter and a half long.

So there we spent the next fifteen minutes looking with amazement at those reptiles while they ignore us and continue playing, apparently they are very common and protected species in the Philippines where the locals call them bayawak, or goannas… But please don’t confuse them with the little Iguanas you see here and there, they were massive and awe inspiring.

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