Another beautiful morning and breakfast on the lanai. We have lots of time for a leisurely start before the driver picks us up at 8:00 AM. The cool of the early morning is too pleasant to miss.
We have chosen to have a van and driver for a private tour so Dan and Leroy can stretch out and not crowd into a van full of other people. We can go at our own pace and see what we choose. Our wander about town yesterday has already covered half of the city package tour. The private tour will cost us a total of 1500 P ($30.00 CAD)
Palawan is working to become an Ecotourism destination. The current Mayor of Puerto Princesa has been very strict in enforcing his green policies. Residents can no longer cut the forest without permission so there are still mahogany and ebony trees in the wild. Valentines Day there will be a mass wedding for those who cannot afford individual ceremonies. It starts at 4:30 AM in San Jose and when it is over everyone will go out to the mangrove forest and plant new mangrove. All government employees, students, companies and any individual volunteers will also go out on this one day to enlarge the mangrove areas. This is in sharp contrast to other islands where the demands of fish ponds have removed the mangrove totally in many of their traditional areas. Our guide tells us that bats eat the cashews and spread the seeds so cashew trees are also growing freely in the wild and in many peoples back garden. We are enjoying the cashews as a traveling snack!
We start out heading as far south as we will go today and then work our way back. First stop Iwahig Prison. This is another innovation of the Mayor’s. There is little or no crime on Palawan yet there is a prison. Most of the prisoners are from other areas in the Philippines. The prison has a gate but no external walls. Medium and Minimum classification prisoners wander freely on the grounds and work at assigned tasks. They may be working in the fields as the property is a productive farm. They may be house or garden staff for the homes of prison employees. They may create or sell the crafts available to tourists in the prison store. There are many different ways to learn a skill and earn a living. For many this is the first opportunity they have had to do so. Life inside is far better than any they have had outside.
If they finish their sentence and have nothing to go back to, they can be granted land to farm and bring their families here to make a better life with the skills they have learned. We saw men working in the fields dressed in the prison T-shirts and we saw individuals farming plots on their own. One man was driving a caribou pulling his plow to prepare for planting. Another small home was obviously a family residence and the man was working in his field.
Inside there was a fenced area that appeared to be the residences and would also house the maximum security prisoners. It was obvious that all here were expected to work. The whole area was a very clean and well kept village. Very much nicer than the squatter’s slums I have seen in all of the towns and cities.
We did the usual tourist wander through the store. I had heard they did carving in ebony and I was prepared to buy a nice piece if I found one but all of the work I saw was of low standard for the tourist trade. Instead, I bought a sun hat as my contribution. I thought it might help in the heat of the day. Instead it felt hotter and got in the way of my camera. Oh well, I can leave it at Calibago.
Our next stop was the Crocodile Farm. It is actually the “Palawan Wildlife Rescue and Conservation Center”. We joined on to the end of a bus tour group but soon were wandering on our own - too slow to keep up! We got lots of pictures though.
At the front door they have a hide and skeleton of a 70 year old crocodile that measured 16 feet long. There are crocodiles of all ages in the ponds. Someone in the tour group did not understand “Hands Off” and there was momentary excitement when crocodile tried to get the intruder. The poor croc missed.
Once past the Crocodile ponds, you can wander unescorted to see the many birds and animals represented. The Palawan bear cat is interesting. They can hang by their tails so all paws are free to feed. They can be quite snarley with one another at feeding time so I assume they aren’t as cuddly as they look!
There is also a bearded pig that looks quite entertaining but probably has the personality of a wild boar.
The many birds were beautiful but it is always difficult to get good pictures through a cage so we will just have to remember them. Our favourite was the Blue Naped Parrot. It seems very people friendly and gregarious in its own group as well.
Once our time slot was over, we climbed back into the van for a trip to Rancho Santa Monica, the home of Abraham Mitras who is running again for Congressman here. He has opened the grounds to the public as a beautiful picnic place with a view over Honda Bay. I was more interested in the large number of body guards congregating on the lanai. Obviously Mitras was home at this time. We saw another Rancho Santa Fe while driving across the island later. It is also a Mitras property. I assume the family have a connection to or a fondness for the American southwest.
Our time is almost up so we head back to the city and are dropped off at a very nice restaurant for lunch. Kailui is a restaurant and art gallery combined with beautiful décor and grounds. The food was good too! We had traditional food including seafood, seaweed and a vegetable dish based on banana blossom. It was all very well prepared and well presented. The exception was the mashed sweet potato. It appeared to be off. They apologized and gave us a complimentary dessert. It was a fresh coconut filled with fresh fruit steeped in a raw sugar glaze. The fellows booked a table for the next night - a Valentine’s dinner.
We hailed a couple of tricycles and headed back to Hibiscus Garden Inn for a leisurely afternoon, a light dinner and an early night. Tomorrow is our trip to the Underground River.
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