I’m excited about a trip I will be taking sometime this month. I will be going south of the Philippines to Palawan to accompany some friends visiting the country. It’s a timely break for me since I haven’t gone on a trip for a while.

Back to nature

Palawan is sometimes dubbed the last frontier of the Philippines since most of the natives and the people residing in the area try to preserve the balance and the eco system as much as they can. Although Palawan is known as a diver’s destination (marine life and wreck dives) I won’t be scuba diving (since my friends are non-divers) I will still have a chance to encounter meeting sea turtles, monitor lizards (not looking forward to that) and dugongs.

Dugong

Dugongs or sea cow is a mammal and is on the endangered species list. Even with a diet of sea grass, they can grow up to 3 meters long (about 9 ft.) and can weigh up to 400 kgs! (Who says veggies can’t make you fat?? Haha!) One may think that their size would make them aggressive, violent and intimidating, but actually, dugongs are sometimes referred to as the gentle giants, with no obvious way of defending themselves from natural predators like sharks and crocodiles (or from boat propellers for that matter).

Busuanga (an area in Palawan) is one of the few places in the world where you can observe these gentle giants in their natural habitat.

Paradise?

We will be staying at Club Paradise. Sweet! Escape from the noisy crowd with just sand and the sea on all sides. What’s more, my airfare is a free treat (by my friend) which makes this whole adventure lighter on the pocket. We will be taking a 2-propeller 19 seater plane (scary) from SEAair.

I hope to update you all when I get back from the trip and hopefully have some great photos with the gentle dugongs.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, June 6th, 2007 at 4:09 pm and is filed under Animal love. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.