Not My Idea of Paradise

In movies, when people visualize paradise, it is usually presented as somewhere tropical where they lie on the beach, in the shade of a palm tree, drinking Mai Tais and leaning back in a low lounging chair. They might be wearing swimsuits or sunglasses or straw hats, but the locale is always this tropical beach idea. Often these are criminals imagining what they are going to do with their loot and have the further requirement of a place with no extradition agreements. But let's set that aside for the moment.

I am currently in such a place. We are in El Nido, on the island of Palawan, in the western portion of The Philippines. I have no idea what the extradition sitch is, but as I am not, so far, being sought out by the long arm of the law, I don't need to fret such details. Also, I've not yet seen anyone drinking Mai Tais on the beach here. If I see people drinking anything, it's usually beer. And they don't have low lounging chairs, instead they sunbathe on towels, sometimes topless (the women. Well, the men too, but for whatever reason that isn't worthy of remark.) Nonetheless, this is, as Flynn Rider describes in his post-life-of-crime dream, "somewhere warm and sunny." Arguably, El Nido is paradise.

But not to me.

You cannot argue with a sunset like that. Or can you?

Maybe I'm just different than the criminal classes and other dreamers in movies. Maybe I wouldn't make a good fictional character in a movie. Maybe that's why no one has yet made a movie about me. (Yeah, I'm sure that's the only reason.) Whatever the reason, a tropical island with sandy beaches just isn't paradisiacal to my way of thinking.

To give credit where it is due, El Nido is beautiful. I only have a few pictures (I will come to that in a bit.) But when it is sunny out and you walk along the beach and look into the water, it's majestic. In the shallows you see the light earth tones of the sand just centimeters below the surface. In the slightly deeper areas, the water appears vivid light green. And where it really drops off, the sea is like liquid emeralds, or maybe just one large liquid emerald. What's even better is that here and there, popping up out of the water like Godzilla rising from the depths (which is more of a Japan thing, but I don't know if The Philippines has a Godzilla equivalent,) are these huge mounds. They are islands made of limestone which was made by coral that died a gazillion years ago. (How's the word "gazillion" for intense mathematical precision?) Then tectonic activity thrust them up and the limestone eroded in rain and seawater. What's left is nearly vertical cliffs with lots of exposed limestone, but also lots of lush green plant life.

It's called a karst landscape

Palawan Island itself is atop this same long deceased coral, and you see those jutting mountains limestone heaps not just in the water, but in the land. It is fascinating to see and makes me wish I had a firmer command of geology.

There's that liquid emerald

The people here are super friendly. English is spoken by most everyone. While there are people trying to sell you trinkets on the beach, like unearthed American coins from 1804 found in shipwrecks or necklaces with real shark teeth, they aren't too pushy. They're actually friendly, even after you say no. The weather is a mixed bag. When it rains, wow does it rain. A lot of water falls fast, though it isn't usually with much wind, so it falls straight down. When it is sunny, it is so very sunny. It's also hot and humid and you feel a five degree (or more) difference between being in the sun and being in the shade.

The limestone mounds rising up over the land as well

Yet, after all of that beauty, I don't like it here. I don't hate it, but I don't like it. I've never been a beach bum, a beach enthusiast, or a beachcomber. The point: beaches don't entertain me that much. A few days ago, we did visit a beautiful one called Vanilla Beach, and I played in the water for a couple hours. And that was enough for me. On Saturday, we are taking a tour to like four or five breathtaking beaches. We can snorkel at them. And I suspect that will be about three or four more breathtaking beaches than I need. But hey, it's paradise, right?

We are in El Nido for a total of eight days. Eight freakin' days! Why? Because the oil, which should have lasted only one day, miraculously lasted for eight! (No, I think I'm confusing that with another eight day stretch.) Really it was about good prices on flights with little to no thought about "is there enough to do in this place to keep anyone entertained for eight days?" For me, that answer is no. I had my fill after day two, now I'm in the middle of day five, and looking ahead to the three I have remaining, it's like that camera effect where everything stretches and gets further and further away. There's just nothing much I want to do here.

Ironically, the good news is that I do have work to get done. (Work is the good news, Erich? Yes, Erich. That's what I meant by "ironically".) I'm designing some new courses and taking over another course in the Spring semester. So I have lots of development work to accomplish. I try to do that when the forecast calls for rain and do walks when it is supposed to be sunny. But that doesn't always go as planned. For example, as I write this it is sunny and beautiful out. But the forecast says it will be raining now. And why don't I go walk right now instead of typing this blog? Because I only recently returned from a huge walk, got rained on near the end, and then arrived back to the hotel room drenched in sweat. I took a shower to cool off and clean up. Incidentally, water pressure in El Nido is minimal. The hotel even provides a huge bucket filled with water and a smaller bucket to dump with in case you don't have enough pressure to flush the toilet. As you might imagine, I don't want to go back out and start the sweat process over again.

What's more, I'm alone most of the time. Alrica has work too, and she doesn't feel the compulsion to save it for the rainy times. So most of my walks are all by myself. That's not new. Everywhere we go, I do a lot of walks by myself, no big deal. Frequently, I listen to audiobooks while I walk and/or have a destination in mind. Here I have neither.

Why no audiobooks? This gets back to why I have fewer pictures to share. I broke my phone. I don't have a camera to take more pictures, nor a device to play audiobooks while I walk. And El Nido is not a major metropolis where I can get it repaired nor buy a new one. Nor will I be posting a link to this blog post on Facebook. You see, Facebook thinks I do belong to those criminal classes mentioned earlier and won't let me log in without authenticating. That's another thing one needs a phone for! (I rarely log into Facebook except to post blog links, so honestly, that's no big loss for me.)

In fairness, I can't blame El Nido for the broken phone. I could blame gravity, but gravity got a huge assist from me and my graceful and almost balletic ability to fumble an object in my hands which really should not be fumbled. Yaaaay Erich!

As for destinations, well, I do walk on the beach and I can walk along the streets of El Nido where drivers of the vehicles they call tricycles ask me if I want to get a ride to somewhere. But there aren't a lot of great destinations I could walk to without walking along the main highway. Honestly, I could do that. It's not like an interstate. But it doesn't have any sidewalks. And I would be going up over some mountains to get anywhere interesting.

Except, I would love to go to the karst formations themselves. I would love to walk right up to one of them and touch the limestone and examine it more closely. But the land right at the base of these sheer cliffs seems to be private land. What's more, it seems to be unattractive private land, as I would guess some of Palawan's least affluent people live there. My evidence is the prevalence of corrugated aluminum as part of the building material of their homes. So I can't say that for sure. Maybe corrugated aluminum was all the rage in the days when those homes were built. Maybe you paid extra for the corrugation! Doubtful, but maybe.

I'm trying to keep a positive attitude and make the best of it. One of my father's three maxims, his third, is "attitude is everything." (Though my brother might say my father's third maxim is "Don't get caught with your pants down." That's a family joke, so just shrug it off.) Plus, I know I won't improve my happiness by being miserable. Still, at times it feels good to rant. So lucky you, dear reader, I'm ranting in your direction. Soak it in!

I'll take more walks in the coming days. Probably not on the day we go snorkeling, which does sound super fun. At least at the first location. I don't know if it will continue to be as fun each time thereafter or if habituation will kick in. But I suppose I might see different fish. (I mean fish species. I am sure I won't be seeing the same individual fish since a motorboat will take us from one location to another. Maybe the fish can outrun the boat, but why would they want to? And even if I did see the same individual fish, would I really recognize them? "Oh hey, Natalie Fish is back!")

Well, thanks for letting me rant and complain for a bit. Do I feel less lonely? Maybe a little. Do I feel less bored? Definitely while I am still writing this I do. Do I feel less hot and sticky? Of course, I'm sitting in an air conditioned hotel room. Let's face facts, I don't have too much to complain about. My life, even in El Nido, isn't that hard.

But I wouldn't say it's paradise.