island hopping in el nido: part 1

We only had a couple of days to spend between El Nido and Coron, so after taking the night bus from Puerto Princessa to El Nido, hunting aimlessly for our hostel, and then getting 3 hours of sleep, we were up at 7 am to take the El Nido Island Hopping tour the next day.

There are 4 tours that take you to different beaches and coves, but we were told tours A and C were the best, and they looked like the ones we would enjoy the most. We ended up choosing Tour C, which included stops at Secret Beach, Matinloc Shrine, Hidden Beach, and Talisay Island.

There were about 10 people in our tour group, from all over the world, and they were all pretty cool. We spent the initial boat ride chatting about the Philippines, places we’d been, and places we’d like to go. Our first tour stop was Hidden Beach, and that’s where most of the pictures in this post are from because it was absolutely awesome.

Our captain parked the boat, and encouraged us to get off and look around. We got off the boat onto a shallow little rock ledge, and weren’t sure exactly what we were looking at, the cliffs were pretty, but nothing amazing. I guess that’s why they call it Hidden Beach? Cleverrrr…..

He directed us to walk to the right towards an opening in the cliffs, which we did, with some difficulty, as the waves were crashing against the rocks, and people kept losing their balance and falling over. It was actually pretty funny, except most of us, including me, were a little scraped up by the time we got to the opening. Do not attempt this journey without some kind of shoes, you’ll be sorry.

Once we got through the opening, we were faced with one of the most beautiful places I’ve ever seen. The towering cliffs loomed overhead, hundreds of feet in the air, almost completely surrounding the beach except for the openings at each end. The water was crystal clear turquoise, and it was so peaceful and serene inside.

We spent about 40 minutes there, taking pictures and then swimming and relaxing and just enjoying it. Once we were back on the boat, we set off for the Matinloc Shrine, more pictures of that in my next post.

The Island Hopping tours are an absolute must if you are in El Nido, it was one of the best days of our entire trip. The tour only makes 4 stops, but there are so many beautiful beaches and rock formations in that area that the entire day on the boat feels like part of it, you don’t feel like you are just commuting from sight seeing point to sight seeing point.