I had been letting myself down on the walking front for the past week and hadn’t taken my daily 10 KM walk. traditionally this walk has been taken in the cool autumn air of Otago with a waggy tailed friend called Spock the Dog, however over here in the Philippines when ever i wake up its already 30 degrees and either raining or just Humid to the point where you get a film of sweat upon your body.

Thursday was going to be different so I made the commitment to myself and by big beautiful beyonce hips that dont lie to get out and get it done……just ask Shakira!

Sunrise starts at about 5:40AM and by around 9-10 PM the full heat of the tropics sets in, and today would be no Different, in El Nido there is no real places to walk, their is a few city streets and a small sandy beach… other than that the main arterial root into the township.

i turned left out of the Inngo Travelers Inn and started strolling up to the main street, there is only 2 main roads in and out of El Nido and both don’t offer a lot in the way of sight seeing which is unfortunate.
about 1 KM up the road it widens to a more standard New Zealnd back road size.

the traffic is starting to pick up and the existence of sidewalks are not common in this part of the globe, my apple watch pings to notify me i have left not only my Bags at the accommodation which was planned…. but it also pinged to let me know that i had also left my phone at the Inn aswell… great…. no music to ignore the street touts trying to sell me their pearls and other thrift that can only be explained as the next addition to trash island in the pacific.

as i walk further out of town heading towards the outskirts people look at me as they drive past… not in the sense that I’m a white round eye but more in the sense i feel as, why is this tourist walking our streets
people don’t tend to smile much when they are going about their business, what is common courtesy in New Zealand when walk to smile or say hello is seem to be a bit of a taboo and you just glide past each other either looking at the ground or avoiding eye contact which is a bit odd.

as i get further and further out of town, that stale water smell and rubbish that has an odour of sour milk gets stronger and the population of sad looking stray dogs who are hungry and dehydrated seems to increase drimatically.

the first dog that took my attention which this i am not proud of mentioning however it blew my mind…

a dog was lying very peacefully beside a street trike looking very proud with himself. he was lying down with 4 legs sprawled out straight with his eyes half open. it is hard to determine exactly what breed he was as all dogs here look like a variation of different dogs and a lot seem to have skin conditions of loosing patches of hair or just sick in some way shape or form. as i walked past i noticed this dog was hung like a tripod! and i don’t mean like a mini tripod i mean this dog had a 5th leg that i’m sure would give the Asian population on the local area a bit of shame. now im not telling you this because i came to asia to look at homeless dog cocks on the side of the road…. but even i felt emasculated walking past this beast, and the look on his face was one of …… “yeah i know, god delivered it and i signed for it”

about at the 4KM i had to walk over a small hill, the road was narrow however most of the traffic is either Trikes or Scooters with the occasional Lewis Hamilton driving his van back to Puerto, as i made my way over the hill their was a second dog lying on the side of the road, this dog looked to be on his last legs and was really just skin and bone with not much life left in him we made some eye contact as i passed him (no i didn’t look at his dog man bits ) and i decided that if i could get to the MacDonald’s on the outskirts of town before my 5KM marker to return i would treat this dog i decided to name ML King… i figured he still must have some fight left in him and his unkept black coat still had some tenacity left even after being enslaved to a life in the street begging for food trying to make each day just a little bit more bearable.

good news for the dog the MacDonald’s on the outskirts of town … it lies exactly 4.81KM from my accommodation however i did not bring a face mask and the nice security man was having no bar of me trying to enter…. i wonder if that was the universe trying to tell me to not interfere with its greater plan for ML.KING

upon my halfway point at 5KM i noticed my T-shirt was getting very heavy and i had the most beautiful T-shirt that was drenched only to exacerbate my last few Kilos of my Moobs to the general population of El Nido, like a Greek Adonis before battle.

as i walked back to town i could not bare to look at ML king still in his spot probably dying a slow death. i felt a bit of guilt that i couldn’t at least give him a chance to fight his last few days on the side of the road.

as i passed i thought of Spock and i remember that he gets a bit stroppy when he only gets 3 cups of food not 4 or looses his favorite tennis ball… he also has a selfish streak that when im watching TV he paws your free hand demanding under his chin as chest to be rubbed…. just to remind you that he is there and needs attention…. would spock survive the streets of El Nido… Definatly not

Scenario 1
spock would die of heat exhaustion or determine that it might be a good idea to make his way into the middle of the road and make friends with Mr ZULU on his run up from Puerto

Scenario 2
spock would come to his demise by a kitchen of a local restaurant as he has some good tasty muscular meat on his bones.. ( i don’t think its common to eat pets here but not unheard of)

either wat My Woofs would literally be toast!!!

it was now around 8:45 and i had returned. i had a few things to do today.

-1: Pack up my gear and laundry
-2:gett coffee
-3: catch my van back to Puerto for my flight Cebu city on Friday.

the first 2 items on that list you can imagine . an 85KG Romanian KIWI stuffing clothes into a bag wishing he had brought 25% less. what your all probably wondering is…. did i get Mr. Zulu for the return journey…

and the answer is NO i did not sadly but i was hopeful i would see him at the bus terminal.

the bus terminal is on the main road i walked past earlier in the day and would not be anything similar to a bus terminal as we know it in New Zealand. it is a dust bowl with a bunch of vans lined up and you have to wait in the elements for the busses to arrive, they then basically round up groups of 12, you pay your 600-800 Peso’s and they load you in like sardines , crank the AC and off you go.

My drivers name i didnt catch but i would consider him a Filipino version of the Hollywood Actor
“Michael Peña“

the van was what you expect a Hiace Diesel van and the Driver was very very sedate, we slowly wafted out of the gravel carpark and with his fineness of clutch work and smooth gear shifting we were on the highway heading back to civilisation, the journey should take around 4.5 hours to reach Puerto and from what Mr Pena’s driving was like it was going to be safe.

i spent the first hour and a half finishing my second book of the trip called Night Fall , it is the 3rd book out of the Nelson Demille – John Corey series, reading in the middle of a van doesnt seem to give car sickness as i would expect as your right in the pivot point of both axels, where in a car if you are in the back your normally sitting at the pivot point of the rear axle allowing for more horizontal turning movements.

about an hour into the journey we pulled over to the side of the road and the driver got out to have a look at his fellow drivers van heading up to El Nido, they were on the side of the road with their hazard lights flashing, he calls out across the road and runs around to grab his Jack out of his tool kit.

we wait there as he helps fix a tyre with them then scurry back to his drivers seat and with in a blink of an eye our driver had gone from upstanding citizen of Hollywood to a Mexican/Filipino version of Vin Diesel’s Character “Dominic Toretto”… and by the way he launched that van back onto the highway like he was about to jump a canyon in this van….. which im sure had a cracked chassis as the read end seemed to be twisting and contorting with the slightest bump in the road

its safe to say “we not family” (pop culture reference for you oldies)

our half way point was a different stop about 2 hours south east of El Nido and was a nice roadside cafeteria. it was built in a more traditional style with bamboo and also had a we shop on the side of it.
the drivers seem to get to eat for free as they must bring in customers to their shops on regular basis.

the stop was about 20 minutes and rather than risk the food i decided to get a small bag of salted cashews at price of 20C nz and have a snack.

The last 2 hours of the drive as the sun set were basically a mixture of Passing on blind corners and undertaking large trucks.. my sphincter muscle was getting a work out today.

this prompted me to to start googling some road statistics just to see what my chance of dying was.
in New Zealand the chance of a crash of 0.00725% of a fatal crash in a period of 365 days. and that is taking into account the registered vehicle population of 4.4 Million cars and a population of 5.7 million

the Philippines using the same logic works out at the average ownership of cars is 9.3 Percent of the population so extrapolate this data out you end up with around 40 deaths per day and a chance of a fatal accident of 0.139%……………soooooooo i have stopped calculating and basically ready for my death if that happens.

we arrived in Puerto at around 6PM and it was dark. my Motel i had booked was just a 50 Peso Ride from the local bus terminal and the place was called Southwind Palawan. it has a pool and just small units that cost around 30$ a night NZD that includes breakfast and the worst WIFI known to man. it would be faster to send a postcard to anyone you want to contact.

Early Evening in Southwind.

traveling costs around 1000-1500 Pesos a day, that excluded accommodation so i needed to find an ATM.
i learnt the hard way to not use a Euro net ATM they absolutely destroy the exchange rate, i had used one in El Nido and instead of getting 30 Peso to the dollar i got 12…. which is rather expensive in anyone’s eyes so i wont be making that mistake again .

time to call it for a day of commuting .

“The man who asks a question is a fool for a minute, the man who does not ask is a fool for life.”

― Confucius 551BC – 449 BC