01.31.10

Palawan Ho! Part 2

Posted in Playing the Tourist, Uncategorized at 6:49 am by Administrator

After a good night’s sleep, we woke up early in the morning refreshed and with a more optimistic attitude.  The toilets worked, there was hot water, no geckos were infesting the rooms, and not even one  mosquito harassed us during the night.  Ah. . . with that, we ventured outside for a peek at our surroundings and breakfast.

Oh, yeah!  And around the grounds. . .

Here we are at breakfast.

While we ate breakfast we were given the list of possible tours and activities to join.  Since it was too late to join the tour for the Underground river in Sabong, we decided to take the boat ride to Arena Island, which is a turtle reserve.  We took a 30 minute ride from the hotel to get to the starting point.  Then we had to get into a small boat to transfer onto the bigger boat that would take us the rest of the way to the island.

Here’s a pic of Aaron transferring boats.

We sat at the top of the boat. The weather and temperature was perfect for this outing.

And here’s Aaron with the two lady tour-guides-in-training.

The girls are both natives of Palawan and are currently working at the resort as part of their schooling in Hotel, Restaurant Management.  They don’t get paid for their work there, but rather earn school credits.  They were part of the staff who accompanied us to the island.  They were very attentive to our needs while out.  It was almost like having a personal alila.

This was another one of the staff who helped ferry us to and from the islands.  He was in charge of all the play things like snorkles, kayaks, etc.

These are the kinds of boats we saw along the way.

And finally after about 45 minutes, we transferred once more to the little boat and approached Arena Island.  It was really small and reminded me of Guilligan’s Island, ha ha!  Thankfully, they were very clean and careful of the ecology there.

And that’s about all the pictures I can attach to one post so will continue the next post with the landing at Arena Island.   As you can see, the gang is now much happier, and by this time it was pretty clear that I was forgiven! Mommy even “said,” I forgive you now, Marla.  Ha!  Whew. . .

Marlakins

P.S.  Hidden Valley in Laguna turned out to be a nice place!  Marissa, is that the place you visited last time you were here?  Will have to share some of those pics after the Palawan pics.  But oye, I’m gaining weight here!  I was a bit shocked when I saw my pictures!  LOL

While splashing about in the hot springs, Daddy couldn’t help but comment that he found a place that Mark would like!  Tee hee!

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