Boracay to Palawan

I haven't done this for a while so I guess I have a lot to catch up on. I will try not to make it too long.
I had only planned on staying in Boracay for 2 days but wound up staying 5 or so. That seems to be the way with me huh? It's really nice though to not be on a schedule..to be able to go or stay when and where I want.
Boracay is a resort/tourist place for sure but for a good reason. The beaches are really beautiful there. The strip where all the resorts and restaurants are runs along the beach where you are only aloud to travel by foot. No motorized vehicles at all. Along the strip there are bars and clubs and restaurants with great food...Mongolian bbq..mmmmm.. But I have to say that my favorite part about Boracay was meeting a group of local guys on the beach and hanging out with them, singing and drinking Tanduay until well past sunrise every night. The Filipino people are in general some of the nicest, most hospital people I have ever met....Camera stealing prostitutes excluded..grrr. The night that we left all the guys had a going away party for us and we all traded gifts of bracelets and things. They made me a t-shirt and all signed it. It was very sweet. It was hard to leave but then again it is hard to leave each place as each place I go it's it's own paradise.
While in Boracay at our hostel Friendz Alex and I met a crazy Swed named Peter. We bonded instantly. Peter decided to join our traveling family and take the long long boat ride with us to Palawan.
In order to get to Palawan from Boracay you either have to fly which is very expensive or you can take the ferry from Boracay to Caticlan, the bus from Caticlan to Iloilo (7hours) and take a shipping boat from Iloilo to Puerto Princesa (36hours). Of course I chose option 2. The only problem you run into with this long boat option is timing. The boat makes this trip only 3 times a week and it fills up very fast. It took us 3 tries to get on this ship and we wound up having to stay one extra day in Boracay (darn) and three days in Iloilo waiting. We finally made it on the boat on a Monday and set out to sea around 7pm. On the boat we made a couple more friends. A Frenchman Matthieu and an American/Filipino Patrick. They too joined our traveling family. We became 5 and all traveled on to Palawan together. After about 12 hours on the boat it took a 6 hour layover in Cuyo. It would have been a lot more fun had I not let myself get dehydrated and totally ill. But I made the best of it, pretending all the time that I was well and feeling great. When we arrived in Cuyo the beach by the pier was crap so we found a tricycle driver and asked him to take us to another beach. Of course when you give a tricycle free will to take you anywhere you wind up on an adventure and we did. What felt like 3 hours but was probably only 30min later we wound up on a really bumpy rocky road that seemed to lead nowhere when the tricycle driver stopped and said we would have to walk from here. I was a bit concerned until I realized that he would join us. We walked for about 15min and the road opened up to the beach and a half built apparently abandoned building. It turned out that it was not abandoned but owned by a 50 something Australian guy, his 28 year old Filipino wife and their 9 year old son. The Australian man welcomed us with open arms. He offered us coffee, let us swim on his beach and lay around in his hammocks. He was hilarious and his son had laughing for the few hours that we spent there. Meanwhile the tricycle driver is waiting for us. I felt kind of bad. I don't think he realized that by driving us out there he would be spending the afternoon. Well we paid him well to make up for it. About an hour and a half before we were supposed to be back on the boat we asked the driver to take us back. No surprise ...we got a flat tire. Every moment is an adventure. We got the tire fixed eventually and made it back to the boat just in the nick of time.

I have much more to write but I have to go eat dinner now so
To be continued..