On the day before Christmas we woke up with a feeling of excitement because we were leaving for the next island with the morning ferry. But the beautiful day in front of us turned out to it's worst when the receptionist gave us our money back instead of the ferry tickets.
We have never thought that a typhoon could pass Philippines at the end of december, when we booked our trip. I checked the weather every day before our flight and it looked fine except a couple of rainy days. Everything was booked and ready for our perfect trip to Coron and later to the Palawan island. A few days before the storm, we saw warnings about the typhoon, but noone actually knew what was happening. Noone was making any fuss about it. Our first 3 days in Coron were amazing, with great weather and a lot of amazing tours and trips around the island. But on the day when we had planned to leave with a ferry to El Nido, the harbour closed due to gale warning. They didn't put any official notice, they were just closed. It was frustrating, because there was no wind and it was sunny that day so we felt like it would still be possible to travel by ferry. We searched for alternatives, but there were none to get us to El Nido that day. The only thing we could do, was relax and try to make the best out of the situation. So we rented a tricycle and went to the Cabo Beach. We enjoyed it, but we had that sour taste as we couldn't follow our initial plan. The weather forecasted the typhoon Ursula (Phanfone) to come on Christmas day. A perfect gift for our long planned trip!
This itinerary is dedicated to be THE ULTIMATE GUIDE TO WASTING YOUR TIME, while waiting for the typhoon to pass.
The day before the storm, we had to make a lot of food stocks (because who can survive a few days doing nothing without snacking all the time?). We didn't have a kitchen, but we could get hot water if we needed, so we bought a lot of instant noodles. Those would be our warm meal for breakfast, lunch and dinner.
The christmas morning was still calm and cloudy, but in the air was a scent of anticipation of what was coming towards our way. Nevertheless a lot of people were out on the streets like nothing was happening. Later in the day it started to rain and we had to stay inside of our small room. Luckily for us, the storm moved north of the island and didn't directly hit us, like it was first estimated. The typhoon brought only heavy rain and semi strong wind to Coron, so there was no damage done - thankfully...
...sadly the typhoon made a lot of damage on other parts of the Philippines.
So here is a list of things you can do to waste time, while hoping the typhoon doesn't get too strong:
- eat, :D
- play cards,
- watch movies,
- watch rain drops sliding down your window,
- make new friends in your accomodation,
- cancel your bookings for the next few days if you have internet access (airbnb refunded us 100%),
- plan what you will do next days on your trip,
- plan how to write your itinerary,
- edit photos you took,
- call your loved ones and tell them you are okay.
Most importantly, you have to keep your spirits up, because the storm will pass and you will continue exploring this beautiful world.
When the storm passed our island, we couldn't get tickets for ferry to El Nido, because a lot of people wanted to leave the island. We had only 4 days left, before our flight back home, so we had to change our plans completely. The ferry was booked for 3 days in advance, so we made a rash decision to take the first plane going anywhere, just to get away from the small island. There was only one flight, that wasn't fully booked, so we took it and found another piece of heaven in a small village, next to the sea.
If you want to know how we decided to spend our last few days in the Philippines without really knowing where we were going, you can check our next itinerary - comming soon.
