Hello there! I’m back! And yessssss! I’ve been to El Nido, Palawan! < (*insert twinkling eyes here*)

A lot of people presume that El Nido is a luxurious place maybe because of the high end resorts and the cost of the activities that one can do in El Nido. But if you’ve read one of my posts before or if you know me personally, you know that I’m currently a student and there’s no way I could’ve afford a luxurious trip to the Paradise on Earth.

As you can see, my title says “Sudden Paradise”. Yes, sudden. ‘Cause first of all, I was never a traveler. I mean, yeah, I love travelling but my budget is just not enough to allow me to travel to different places. As far as I remember, the places I’ve been in the PH was Davao (I was a kid back then), Baguio, Sagada, Puerto Galera and Baler. So yeah, not a lot. Sooooooo, sudden because our trip to El Nido was very unexpected.

My sister was supposed to go there last year, APEC Week. Since their flights were cancelled, it was re-booked this February. Her friend was working at PAL so she was asked if there’s someone who wants to come with them to Palawan ’cause he’ll be able to provide a discounted ticket. To cut the story short, me and my boyfriend were able to score plane tickets to Puerto Princesa for only PHP 2,600 (two-way trip) and that’s for Premium Economy, not just Economy.

Our original itinerary was

But then, a lot of unexpected events happened so our itinerary even our accomodation was changed.

*Edit*

So I have decided to put all my posts about our El Nido trip here. **lazy me attacks*.

Since there were a lot of changes with our planned itinerary, even our accommodation and the travel and tour agency that we had before was changed. When we arrived at PPS, my sister and her friend went out of the airport and searched for a travel and tour agency.  We got a deal from Miroju Tours and they had encouraged us to cancel our booked accomodation in Verde Safari because they said that the travel to and from Verde to the town proper is more than an hour and it would be very exhausting for us every time we have our island tours. And, they also promised that they can give us an accommodation in El Nido Town Proper even without the earlier reservation. So after few conversations, we closed the deal with Miroju Tours and proceeded to the City Tour while waiting for my sister’s friend. After the city tour, we had our lunch and went back to the office of the travel agency to fetch Ate Mara, which is my sister’s friend.

We arrived at El Nido Town Proper around 9:30pm. And to our dismay,  we don’t have a ready accommodation contrary to what Miroju Tours had informed us. We tried to talk to the driver to drive us to Verde Safari since we haven’t cancelled the reservation yet, but the driver insisted that he will not drive us anymore. Miroju Tours has left us with no other option. We talked to the owner of the accommodation that Miroju has talked to earlier. The owner said that he informed Miroju that the room has no aircondition because of the limited electricity supply to the city since there other rooms are all occupied.But Miroju didn’t inform us of this. After few discussions, we settled in staying at Ricgem. The owner was also frustrated at first but was able to work out a solution. So we were a total of 9 adults and 1 kid staying in a 1 room with 1 double deck bed and 2 double sized beds and 1 t&b. Lol. Imagine the chaos. Haha. We had to schedule the usage of the bathroom and as well as the charging ports for our gadgets. Anyway, for the inconvenience, Ricgem offered us a free breakfast for each of us and the room is only for 3,000php per night. *Super great deal* despite of the hassle.

We were able to sleep, the next morning, we had our free breakfast and proceeded to our first island tour. The travel agency we had for the island tour was “Jhanna’s” and their tour guides were the best! Our 2nd island tour on our Day 3 was also with Jhanna’s. I have a lot of stories to tell from our El Nido Tour but I’m just not in the mood to elaborate things as of the moment. So for the meantime, I’ll leave this blog post here with some photos from our trip but I will try my best to edit this post once “sipag” kicks in. :p

~Till my next random thought.~

Every year, it has been our(bebi and me) panata to do the Visita Iglesia. From the last 2 years, we were able to visit atleast 9-10 churches. But this time, I went alone. We had some fight last night and we're still not on the talking mode. Patigasan eh! Haha! This time, I won't be the one to curve out first. Hmp. It was not my fault. -_- 

Anyways, this year, I was able to visit 14 churches! Hurray for me! First was Our Lady of Annunciation at Quezon City which was near our house.. Then from that church, I rode the jeepney to Sto. Domingo church.. then walked my way from there. Went to UST Church, the 2 churches at Bustillos, the one church near CEU, which I forgot the name... Then St. Jude, St. Michael, San Sebastian, Quiapo Church, Sta. Cruz Church, Manila Cathedral, San Agustin church, then I rode the jeepney on my way home.. Last church was our church here at Sta. Quiteria which was the St. Francis of Assisi Parish.

I'm hoping that next year, may it be I'm alone, or with bebi, or with my bestfriend or with anybody else, I'd be able to finish again 14 churches.