Master Piece of Nature: Puerto Princesa Underground River

entrance of Puerto Princesa Underground River

Puerto Princesa Underground River is one of the Seven Wonders of Nature in the World. Many tourists from all over the world have visited this infamous longest navigable underground river.

Our tour guide picked our group at Mcdonald's in Puerto Princesa City at around 7 in the morning. We where only 8 persons and we were joined by a couple in the van. 

Getting to Sabang port

From Puerto Princesa City to Sabang port is quite a long and bumpy 2 hours ride.

While on the way. I learned some things from our tour guide about Puerto Princesa and it's people. I really like to listen to him but I was really sleepy because we arrived from El Nido to Princesa City at around 3AM and all of us has lack of sleep. I was glad that our tour guide notices that were really sleepy so he let us took a nap.

Sabang port

At Sabang port, this is where you will ride a chartered boat going to Puerto Princesa Subterranean National Park where the Underground River is located. Even if you have booked your tour ahead of time you still have to queue at Sabang port and wait for your assigned boat. There are so many tourists so patience is a virtue.

Sabang Port

At last after one hour of waiting we were called by our tour guide that it is our turn to board the boat. I don't mind waiting for long because I fell asleep while waiting.

After 30 mins of boat ride this is where the boat drops you off. If I was not tired I would love to swim here.

The tour

The Puerto Princesa Subterranean River National Park is manage by Abs-Cbn Foundation in behalf of Puerto Princesa City government. This was a surprise for me because I never read about it from bloggers.

Bayawak (monitor lizard)

Inside the park there are various trees and animals that are freely roaming like monkeys and bayawak. Be careful in approaching them and don not leave your things unattended.

Underground River entrance at the background :)

Like boarding on a boat in Sabang port there is also a queue before you could board a boat going inside the cave. Again, patience is a virtue.

group picture while waiting for our turn

We waited for about 30 minutes until we boarded our boat. Each boat has the capacity of 10 passengers. Each group is asked for a volunteer you can sit in front and hold the torch. I volunteered.

ready for the tour

While on tour, the boatman will tell you where to point the spot light from time to time to different figures inside the cave. The boatman has  memorized each part of the cave even if it's dark. I guess even his jokes are already scripted.

The formations of stalagmites and stalactites inside the cave are really amazing. Poor me that I have no good camera to capture them.

Conclusion....

Even swimming is not allowed here to preserve the place, the tour is GREAT and the place is simply AMAZING!!!!

Many Filipinos are going abroad for vacation I hope before they gone abroad they've been travelling around the Philippines first because we did not just enjoy the place we also help the locals to earn a living.

We ended our tour with a sumptuous Filipino lunch near at Sabang port where we also tried their exotic delicacy the TAMILOK.