Friday 15 February 2013

After The Island. El Nido - Port Barton

At the agreed day Ruel came to pick us up. We still had some water and rice left so we gave it to him. Also we gave him the fishing net, Mark's snake pants (which he never used), one of the tarpaulins and the lobster cage.

It was sad to leave our Island. To be honest, my eyes got a little wet. All in all, it was my biggest dream ever and that was it... Two weeks is definitely not enough.

At our arrival on the beach in Corong Corong, which is south of El Nido but still part of it, the first thing we have experienced was the NOISE. Unbelievable how different it was now than two weeks ago. On The Island we could hear only sounds of the Nature. I think people naturally accept/ignore the sounds of the Nature, it cannot be disturbing or annoying, even loud waterfall is not something you consider as uncomfortable noise. I have read somewhere that when you would take out for example all of the birds or the sound of the river from a certain area of a natural habitat like forest, jungle etc. some of the other species would die, I think it was about the frogs. But anyway, it wasn't nice...

We have taken the same beach bungalows as before The Island but this time only for one night. We wanted to escape as soon as possible. Although El Nido is really nice town and the view of the Bacuit Bay is stunning, we could not handle the noise of music and parties and the people. El Nido starts to be a very touristic place, unfortunately...

So, the next morning we hopped on the bus towards Puerto Princesa but jumped out in Roxas. Well, actually on the crossroads near Roxas. We have been told to catch a tricycle to the Roxas and from there a jeepney to Port Barton. After arrival in Roxas everyone told us that "no more bus to Port Barton today". But, as I never give up and did not want to spend the night in Roxas (nothing intersting there and, mainly because it is not a coastal town, so no sea to which we've got used to on The Island) I have asked a driver of some truck loaded fully with a furniture and other unidentified stuff if they are going to Port Barton by any chance. Guess what, they did go to Port Barton! It turned out to be a family who was moving house from Roxas to Port Barton! There were 4 adults and 3 children. A chance one to million that we have came across them, otherwise we would need to stay in Roxas until following morning...


Our fellow passenger. Unfortunately did not speak English..

Oh, by the way, I recommend to put your rain cover on your rucksack when traveling by jeepneys. See photo above where you can see my rucksack after the trip from El Nido.. :)

















The truck was quite big, with a tarpaulin over the back and side wooden barriers. The back was opened and after agreed price of 300 pesos each we have jumped on the back. After some time waiting for someone or something to be loaded on the truck we have started our journey. And what a journey it was! Despite our asses were in disarray due to really wild and bumpy road and crazy driver, the trip was really amazing. We have been driving through a dense jungle with no road, just a muddy track with a holes everywhere.  Few times we would fell out of the truck as the truck was jumping on the holes and we were sitting on the very end on some wooden plank (no, it was not there for sitting but the whole truck was fully loaded).




It took around 2 hours (maybe less or more, don't remember, was too tired and excited about the jungle around) and we arrived in Port Barton. Well, I would not call it a "port". It was a tiny coastal village with a quite narrow beach. But! No tourists, no noise and really friendly people!

We have found a rooms just on the beach in a small guesthouse. We paid something around 350 pesos for a night. There was a really nice verandah with the hammocks and a beautiful view of the bay











1 comment:

  1. Yep, I can imagine after two weeks on the island the arrival back on the mainland would have given you serious sensory overload and been a shock to the system.

    Enjoying your stories and photographs.

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