(WARNING: Written while grumpy! May contain some cursing and general huffiness…)
Today was the first day of my Rescue Diver course, a class which is a prerequisite for the Dive Master course. I am in El Nido, a town on the island of Palawan in the Philippines. I’ve heard the diving here is great, so I decided to take my PADI Rescue Diver course while I’m here, and made plans to stay on the island of Palawan for nearly a week. I already took the prerequisite Emergency First Responder and Oxygen Provider courses in Australia a couple months ago, and once I signed up for this class, I did most of the online coursework while still in Manila. (Good thing, too, since the WiFi here is a bit spotty!)
Dive Site near El Nido, Palawan
It’s spectacularly beautiful here, something I only really saw once I was on the boat and headed out to the dive site this morning. I was supposed to get here around midnight last night from Manila where I’ve been staying with my cousin Steven, Caroline his partner, and their baby Jacob for the last several days. Unfortunately, due to plane delays, and even more delays from the van I took from Puerto Princessa to El Nido, I didn’t arrive at my hotel here until nearly 3 am last night! And I was rather grumpy about it too! Usually I don’t mind things such as delays in departures and stuff, but I get rather irritated when people either don’t keep me informed or tell me one thing and do another.
The domestic departures terminal at Nimoy Aquino International Airport actually gives new meaning to the word “clusterfuck.” I’ve never seen such a mess. So many people were crammed into the terminal that every available seat was taken, as well as all the spots on the floor along the walls. This meant there was nearly no space to walk to get to your gate, so you were tripping over people everywhere. It was also hot, humid, and therefore sweaty. Every two or three minutes, the loudspeaker would blare as someone announced the delay of another flight or the late arrival of another turnaround flight. Very rarely was boarding announced, so the room just kept getting more and more crowded. What a mess! Even once we got onto the plane (which had been late arriving in the first place), the plane had to wait in line to get onto the runway for takeoff.
Dive Shop from Dive Boat, El Nido, Palawan
After arriving in Puerto Princesa nearly two hours late, I left the terminal and arranged to take a van to El Nido. When I asked the woman when the next trip was while paying, she said the van was leaving “right now”so I hurried to follow some guy out to a van where no other passengers were waiting. Then I stood patiently by the van for a good twenty to thirty minutes.
After a while, someone came and told me to sit in the bus if I wanted, but then someone else came a little later saying something about taking the van to drop someone off and then come back, but they wanted to take the van with my stuff in it. Not super-keen about losing all of my belongings or possibly missing my ride in another van, I pulled my bags out.
Ten minutes later, someone else brought me to a different van and put me in that. This one was running and there was another couple in it. I foolishly thought we might be going somewhere relatively soon. They moved the van – into the parking spot where the previous one had been.
Then, we sat in the van with the air conditioner running for another half an hour or more. Finally I asked the couple what was up and when the hell they though we were going to be leaving. I’d been told it was a six hour bus trip to El Nido. By this time, it was after 8pm. I was getting irritable. I stated that I really didn’t mind if we weren’t leaving for a while, but the lady had told me the van was leaving immediately. I had no desire to sit in a car for an hour and a half if I could be walking around and stretching my legs, maybe getting dinner, especially knowing I was about to be sitting for the duration of a long drive ahead!
The couple was from London, but Flipino, so they asked what was going on. In reply, someone got into the van and drove us to Jollibee, a local fast food joint equivalent to MacDonalads. Then, he drove us back to the airport to pick up some more people I guess they had been waiting for who were coming on the last flight. (Really, these asses couldn’t have just told me that I’d be going on a van that would leave after the last airplane arrived? I had to sit inside the van in anticipation the whole time?)
After picking up that family, we went by another office in town where we waited around with no explanation and then picked up a couple more people. On the way out of town, we picked up someone else, literally off the side of the road, from what I could tell. I’d been on Palawan for nearly three hours by then and still hadn’t even left Puerto Pricesa! Luckily, someone had said the drive to El Nido was a little more like 4 hours than 6, so I’d calmed down a tiny bit, thinking I’d be at my hotel a little earlier than I was now gloomily anticipating. They were wrong. Still, the information helped me to keep my cool a bit longer. Clearly, I do much better when I at least have some information about what to expect….
Tabanka Divers – where I’m doing my class
Finally we left Puerto Princesa. We didn’t arrive in El Nido until well after 2 am. Luckily, the van operator dropped us off at our hotels, rather than taking us to the bus station. Maybe none of the tricycle drivers would have been awake that late anyway. I had to wake up someone at the hotel to check me in. At least the diveshop owner had alerted them that I was coming, so they were prepared. The hotel, or pension, where I am staying is located above the diveshop where I’ll be taking my Rescue Dive Course. My classes started this morning at 8.
While I was being led up to my room on the 3rd floor (walk-up, with crazy uneven stone steps), one of the first things I noticed was this enormous insect in the hallway, the likes of which I don’t believe I’ve ever seen. If you’ve seen the movie Pan’s Labyrinth, and you know what the fairies in that movie look like, you have an idea of what this bug looked like. It was nearly 6 inches long, and shaped like a mix between a mosquito and a grasshopper, with a bit of beetle thrown in. I was a little less than thrilled when I realized the screens on my windows were ripped and all I had covering them were wooden slats which closed as window coverings. The door closed, however, and there was a fan, and the bug didn’t seem to have come in with us. I did hear some scuttling around on the ceiling, but that was closed as well…. This may be a wilder trip than I anticipated!
So basically, after all that and three dives today, I’m tired. I’ll tell you about the dive course after a nap.