Sunday, Oct 19 - Travel to El Nido

Sunday, Oct 19 - Travel to El Nido

We got up and underestimated how long it would take to get to the bus depot, but it didn't matter that we were five minutes late: the bus left at 8:30. It took a while to figure this out - and then more time to come up with an alternate plan.

Someone suggested we should try to catch a van to Roxas, a town about one third of the way to El Nido. There was a good chance, our contact said, that we could catch up with the bus. We asked around, found a van that was leaving in a few minutes AND had enough room to stuff us in. Actually I think adding us reduced the amount of bouncing around inside for the other travelers.

I didn't really think we'd catch up with the first bus. We were more than an hour behind it, and it was such a long shot. But when we pulled into Roxas 2 hours later, there was our bus - just about to leave after a lunch break. The only problem: it was packed full. But if you'd like to ride on top, you're welcome to.

Are you kidding?

The bus already had 4 or 5 people on top wedged into some bamboo living room furniture strapped to the roof racks or sitting on top of all the baggage tied down. We crawled up and joined them.

For a while it was beautiful: sun shining, wind blowing. Just duck those tree branches and power lines!

Then we got into mountains and it started raining. The first couple were just showers, but about the 4th rain we had a major downpour. A cats and dogs kind of downpour. Of course by this time we were driving mostly on a dirt road. And of course rain means the road gets muddy and makes the chuckholes worse. A couple hours later we pulled into TayTay. Some people got off so we went below and spent the last couple hours like normal people.

We arrived a little before sunset, got to our cabin and settled in in time to watch the sunset before going out for supper with a guy from Minnesota that we met on the bus.