Palawan!

So I'm doing all my traveling this week, which is how I spent most of yesterday bumping from Puerto Princesa up to Sabang in a way-overloaded jeepney full of vegetables, rice, cartons of nonperishable foods, and about thirty people. Still, when I finally got there, I rented a nipa hut on the beach for $5, washed off in the South China Sea, jogged down the beach for rice, grilled fish, and San Mig, and then went for a midnight swim. It was probably the most beauty I've seen in 24 hours, ever. I stood out on a sandbar for like twenty minutes just staring up at the sky, which is literally blanketed in stars and cloudy galaxies, which I don't think I've ever actually seen that clearly before. (I'd like to say that I slept peacefully afterwards, but that's not true. I woke up once in the middle of the night and had to pee and almost killed myself trying to get out of my mosquito net and almost woke up everyone on the beach when monitor lizards kept running over my feet en route to the bathroom and I almost screamed.)

I woke up at dawn to grab coffee and a banana pancake (yay!), then hiked through the rainforest (apologies to Nurse Jane) on the Jungle Trail to the Underground River. Somehow, I managed to get into the first boat that was leaving, tour the river, hike back along the Monkey Trail (and by hike, I mean periodically sprint), and catch a jeepney back to Puerto Princesa, where I'm spending the night before Honda Bay tomorrow. Also, there's a total 'mo working at the front desk of my inn. It's a good thing I brought a very damp version of my survey. (I got soaked in my own sweat hiking 5km to the river, then once again hiking 5km back.) And then I changed shirts and reapplyed deodorant, and then I got rained on and soaked again. Anyway, I'm going to polish off my shopping, because the outdoors isn't working for me today.