This morning I woke up before the sun was out.   Today was the Superbowl!   The Philippines is 13 hours ahead of New York where the game was being held so that meant it started at 7:30am our time.

I left Methzie in bed while I stumbled around in the dark looking for my clothes.

At 6am I was walking down to the Art Cafe restaurant and bar – the only place in town showing the game.

Until a week ago this wasn’t going to happen.   When I figured out I’d be in El Nido for the Superbowl I was actually putting the odds at seeing the game pretty low.

First of all, El Nido is not a big city with a lot of bars.   Also, they turn the power out in the city every day between 6am and 2pm.   This meant that I’d have to find a bar that had a generator but also was able to get the channel showing the football game.

I, of course, turned to my old friend Google and typed:   Where can i watch Superbowl in El Nido?

One bar came up.   Their web page was kind of basic but they did have a link to their Facebook page so I visited that.   It appears someone else had done the exact same thing as Erin from Seattle had already asked on their page if they would, in fact, be showing the game.

I followed the conversation between her and the bar and things were looking bleak when they were talking about wifi hookups and TVs in the repair shop.

And then a couple of days ago they turned us to their competitor – Art Cafe.   We found out later that the owner at Art Cafe actually had no idea what the Superbowl was and had to look it up but once they figured it out, the game was on.   They even advertised it on a little black board out front.

At 6:30am they opened their doors and myself, Erin, her boyfriend Darryl, Dean (from Toronto) and another couple Marco & Melissa (Swiss and St Louis living in Shanghai) sat down at the big table in front of the big screen.

Booze mode was already on for many of them whereas I was kind of put off with booze after last night.   I ordered a cappuccino while they had drinks and I finally gave into peer pressure and added some Baileys to it.

As 7:30 approached we were getting a little worried as the staff was still flipping through the channels looking for the right one.

They finally stopped on a channel that had a Filipino version of The View wrapping up.

Through the mish-mash of Filipino and English being spoken our ears perked up and we got excited when one of the ladies said Seahawks.

That we understood!

And then a minute later – that magical theme song of the NFL came over the speakers – da da da dun da da dun dun dun…

Game on!

After 12 seconds it was 2-0 Seahawks and they never looked back.

Methzie came by as the second half was starting and by then the game was a forgone conclusion.

We hung out til the end, had a couple more drinks including 2 rounds of Jagermeister that Melissa bought.

Ah, Jagermeister at 9:00 in the morning…

The game was over by 11am and Methzie and I headed back to the hotel.   Of course the power was still out so we just kind of hung out in our room til 2pm when the power popped back on.

In the afternoon we popped back into town where we found an ice cream cart playing that wonderous music – music to my ears as I had been craving an ice cream bar for a few days.

I also bought some cough medicine at the drug store as I’ve been feeling a little tickle in my throat.

Next stop – barber shop.   For 100 pesos ($2.50) I got my hair shaved off.   It’s just too damn hot here with any kind of hair so I said screw it, just shave it off!   So, yeah, I’m a skinhead now…

On our way back to the hotel we stopped for a hamburger/fries combo as Methzie was craving fries.

The fries were 150 pesos but the combo was 200 pesos so it only made sense to get the burger too.   The burger was huge.   It was served on a hoagie bun with 3 mini patties in it, lettuce, tomato, mayo and cucumber.   Cucumber?   Weird…

Before we headed out this afternoon, I let the girl know they could clean our room anytime as we were going out and it had yet to be cleaned.   Now, we all know how that turned out…

Came back to a dirty room.   The guy told me that they didn’t clean it because we didn’t leave them the key.   What the hell place is this?!?   If anyone is planning on going to El Nido – Do not stay at Big Creek Mansion!   If you didn’t read my blog yesterday, here’s the footnotes:

-got an electrical shock from the light switch in bathroom
-their wifi never worked
-the sink faucet only gave a very, slow thin stream
-the hot water switch in the shower kept flicking off so basically no hot shower
-there was never anyone at the front desk
-room wasn’t cleaned until 6pm
-there were roosters literally camped out back of the room crowing at 3 in the morning

Please don’t let our experience here be in vain.   If I can save one person from staying here, it will have been worth it…

Anyway…

Rant over!

For dinner we headed up the hill to a restaurant the man at the front desk recommended.

The walk to and from the restaurant was about 10 minutes from our hotel along a dark quiet street lined with trees.

It was so quiet and peaceful and you could see the sky and stars so clearly.

Squidos hilltop restaurant is literally on a hilltop.   It actually was quite a few steps to get to the top but once there it was beautiful.

They offer a buffet between 7pm and 9:30pm for 250 pesos ($7) of a selection of seafood pasta, chicken, beef, rice, salad and watermelon.   It wasn’t the best buffet I’ve ever had but it fit the bill for what I wanted tonight.

And that was our day in El Nido.

To be honest, aside from the island hopping there isn’t much to do here in El Nido.

I know they offer other tours but I’m really not inclined to take them mainly because there will be other opportunities to do snorkeling and the like down the road when I hit the other countries on my Asia trip.

Also, with Methzie with me, it costs me double and she doesn’t really want to go in the water so it’s kind of a waste of money.

We turned in by 9pm as I’m ready to move on and and want an early start tomorrow to catch the 6am bus back to Puerto Princessa so we can arrive by noon and have a full day there before we say our goodbyes the following day.

Asia Trip 2014, Trip Journal

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