Beautiful Coron

For Easter weekend,  we took a long-anticipated trip to the Philippine province of Palawan.    The province actually stretches over many islands,  with 1200 miles of coastline, so we had many options for our visit.   While the capital city of Puerto Princesa and the island of El Nido were tempting options,  we chose the region of Coron as the best combination of convenience and beauty. 

Our stay in Coron consisted of a Coron city tour and a Coron Islands tour surrounded by lots of lounging around the hotel (swimming for the kids,  drinks for Mom and Dad).   

Our hotel was right in the middle of town,  which was great for some local culture but poor for sleeping due to the 5 AM rooster wakeup call. 

Our Coron town tour started with a visit to the pier.   Here is where we caught our private longboat to see the islands the following day.   After we saw the local church and a souvenir shop,  we hiked up the hill (Mount Tapyas) you see in the background of the picture below.

The hike up Mount Tapyas was good exercise and a great view.  You can see the town below,  as well as some of the islands we would see in the next day's Island tour.

Our hotel is the peach colored building in the middle of the picture,  near the water.

Here's a panorama view of the other side of Mount Tapyas.

The last stop on our Coron Town Tour was the Maquinit Hot Springs.  It was getting pretty dark but that actually yielded some pretty cool pictures. 

 Paul Eli jumped right in the water and Esme was hoping that she would "accidentally" slip in as well.

After a dog and rooster-interrupted night's sleep and a hearty Filipino breakfast,  we headed out for Coron Island Tour.  

First stop was Kayangan Lake on Coron Island.   It is one of the few bodies of water that the public is allowed to view.   It is also said to be the cleanest lake in the Philippines (maybe not after Esme swam in it).   Take a look at our view as we climbed up to the lake:

Once we got to the lake,  we did some swimming and cave exploration.  I tried to remember how to snorkel while Paul Eli worked on his cannonball:

We heard there were some really nice beaches on Coron Island so we planned to relax on the beach and let the kids swim and play in the sand.   Unfortunately, millions of tiny jellyfish arising from a recent downpour convinced us that wasn't a great idea.

While we weren't able to spend a lot of time at the beach,  we were still able to have a delicious Filipino picnic lunch.   Chan loved the big plate of local crabs.  Everybody tried the unripe mango and bagoong (see bottom of picture).   It was one of my (Paul) mom's favorite foods,  but it's doubtful the tradition will be passed on.   I actually thought the bagoong was considerably better than other ones I've tried,  but at the end of the day it's still fermented shrimp paste.

After lunch we did some more snorkeling, starting with the Skeleton Wreck and moving on to the Coral Garden.   The Skeleton Wreck is one of the many Japanese warships that were sunk by the Allies.   Here is a video of us snorkeling over the shipwreck.  

The coral near the Skeleton and in the Coral Garden were very impressive for newbies like us.  There was also a lot of beautiful fish including numerous bright blue Dory fishes (from Finding Nemo fame).

  Unfortunately I don't have an underwater camera so I wasn't able to capture the beautiful coral but here is a quick shot of the fish underneath our boat right before we jumped in:

We finished up our day with another swim in another beautiful blue pool surrounded by more limestone cliffs (sigh).   This is Twin Lagoons.   Somewhere within that cliff is a small crack with a ladder you can climb or a tunnel you can swim through to reach the second lagoon.  

After our long, successful day we had some surprisingly good pizza at the hotel and visited the local market for some delicious halo-halo.

Here is a close-up of one of the best bowls of halo-halo I've had.   For me,  the key to a good halo-halo is all of the variety of flavors, textures, and colors.   Every bite should be a little different.

Bye Bye Coron!   It was worth the wait :)