Puerto Princesa’s Underground River is the number one thing to do in Puerto Princesa. It’s been declared one of the New7Wonders of Nature, so you know it’s a pretty big deal.

Though it’s considered a part of Puerto Princesa, it was quite a ways away from our hotel. Like two hours away. Again, we all bundled up in one big van and made the trek.

We took one stop to a little shop along the way, it had a pretty incredible view.

Why I’m retiring to Palawan: Exhibit A

 After driving a bit longer, we finally embarked on…the place to wait for our boat. There was a small touristy area of shops, and also the Tagbanua tribe’s people playing instruments.

A little about the Tagbanua tribe

The view as we were waiting on our boat. (Also: Exhibit B why I’m retiring to Palawan)

After we were off of the boat, THIS is where we found ourselves:

Exhibit C.

We followed a trail through some forest, and there were signs about the different wildlife that could be found throughout the forest. They warned us NOT to feed the monkeys, but we didn’t see any. 🙁

We arrived to the area to wait for our tour boat. This is a huge tourist attraction, and there were tons of people there from all over the world. The area was right under the hot sun and in a forest, and I have to warn you: it is HOT and humid. I realized a little too late that there was an opening to beach about 10 meters away, it probably would have been 1000x cooler. But, we wouldn’t have heard our number called. Bring a fan, water mister, a block of ice, anything(!) to keep yourself cool.

When it was our group’s turn, they asked who would like to sit in the front and control the flashlight. I’ll give you one guess who wanted to be in control…

Actually, I thought I’d try to get better pictures if Mark was lighting the way. But really, I’m so new to this photography thing that I didn’t have much of a chance between the moving boat and the complete lack of light.

Those lights in the distance were from another boat. Though the tour was only 30 minutes long to accommodate the many tourists, the river goes on for miles.

The tour guide was really funny and inside, it was really cool. But watch out for bats!

After the tour, we had the option of taking the boat back to where we came from, or to take the boat a shorter distance, walk up a hill and zipline.

I’ll give you a moment to guess what we chose.

I had been saying, since we arrived in Palawan, that the island was like what I imagined Never Neverland to be when I was a child. (There’s pixie dust in the water and in the trees, for crying out loud!) So on the ride down, of course I was all:

Naturally.