Zipline and a Long Ride to El Nido {Day 4} August 17th

We got up early in the morning and enjoyed a fabulous buffet breakfast with fresh fruit, fresh omelets, pastries, juices, Filipino food and more.

 

Mom was sick with a migraine so she stayed in bed most of the morning. So we took mom some breakfast in bed. Her migraine was making her so sick she was vomiting and it was hard to keep food down. So we left her to rest and went to the zip line.

 

We took a small boat across the water and then hiked 100 feet above sea level through the jungle to the zip line. Angela, Jordan, Tanner, Jeremy, Mark, Monica, Matthew and Merritt were all along for the hike. In fact our driver Ronald even came along. No one expected the 7 and 4 year olds to go down the zip line, but they did. They did awesome!  The zip line was awesome. It went over a bay of the South China Sea.

 

On our hike back to the van we found a mature coconut. Jeremy cracked it open and we drank the milk from it. Then he cut it open and we ate the coconut flesh. It was delicious.

 

When we got back to the hotel we ate lunch and tried to take in the last few moments of the beautiful resort.

After lunch we took a long, long drive in the van to El Nido. On the way there we passed through Roxas and TayTay. Our poor mother was sick for the entire drive and little Merritt got sick too.

We stopped by this banana tree so someone could puke. It was fun to see the banana tree.

While we were stopped we also checked out this farm.

When we stopped by the farm we found some shy grass. This video shows how it shys away when you touch it.

 This was our drivers mother-in-laws house. He stopped here for a minute to get something.

This is a view from inside the van while driving. We thought it was funny that Ronald has so many stuffed animals on his dash. It was not uncommon to see a vehicle pass by with standing room only.

 We stopped by this cool tree when the driver Ronald lost his bummer navigating through the bumpy dirt road.

When we finally made it to El Nido we got dropped off in the sweltering heat with all of our luggage in a dark alley. It was really creepy. Apparently our beach resort was a hike away and could not be accessed by car. Jordan disappeared to find out where we were staying. After what seemed like and hour he returned and let us know they were still working things out. So we packed our things back in the van and walked down the beach to sit down and get a drink at a restaurant.

When we made it to the hotel we discovered that part of the getting things worked out was trying and failing to get rooms with A/C. So half the group slept with no A/C for the next four nights. The resort was really nice if you did not mind being hot. :) Our secret to staying cool was that we would run the fan and take a cold shower in our underwear before going to bed.

Our dad had been at the hotel most of the day and we were all happy to see him. We were all hungry so we went to eat at the hotel restaurant. The Cadlao Beach Resort restaurant left much to be desired. I ordered a fruit plate and crepes. The fruit was fine, but the crepes were horrible. Dad ordered a burger and it tasted like fish. He later went to the kitchen chef and said his burger tasted rotten. The chef said, "I put in salt, and onion and no fish." Funny, no one mentioned anything about fish to the chef. We are pretty sure his burger had fish mixed in the meat. This was the last time we had dinner at the resort restaurant.

 Just as I was starting to get comfortable in my heat sauna room Jordan came knocking on the door. He wanted Angela to take a picture of this glow worm he had found. The first picture has the flash so you can not see the glow but below you can barely tell that the worm was glowing a vibrant green color. Every time Jordan pocked the worm with the leaf if would glow. It was pretty cool, but my phone camera did not do it justice.