Being stationed in Port Barton for a while, we felt an urge for a break from the tourist throng and the omnipresent touts. Being not great fans of organized, costly and banal tours, we examined different possibilities for independent, economic trips we could take out from Port Barton to the marvelous Palawanese wilderness. The best means we found to take such trips were rented motorbikes and kayaks. After all, we did a 3-day kayaking trip around the bay and two motorbike day trips. On one of them, we headed north on enduro bikes; on the other, which is the subject of this post, we drove scooters to Caruray Beach.
How to get from Port Barton to Caruray
As far as I understood, the only way to get from Port Barton to Caruray by public transport is via Puerto Princesa, which could only marginally be done in one day. When we were in Caruray, we only spotted two daily routes going to and from Palawan’s capital city. Perhaps there also are some better options from Roxas but we didn’t see any such. Anyhow, it’s far from simple to reach Caruray by public transport, and rather impossible to do the round trip in one day. The best option is clearly to drive a motorbike on your own.
The distance from Port Barton to Caruray Beach is 39 km. But that’s much farther than it sounds, given the road’s quality. Almost the entirety of the route is on bumpy dirt roads and narrow tracks outright impassable by a car. You can only do it on a motorbike; better an enduro, but a scooter is fine too if you don’t mind getting your bones and muscles a little sore. In any case, you should trust your driving abilities before you attempt the trip. It took us two hours altogether at a fairly high speed.
We took the main road out of Port Barton leading to San Jose for about 4.5 km. Off a sharp left curve (coordinates: 10.3852, 119.1731), leaves a dirt road leading west. We followed this for about 8 km until we encountered another road leaving to the left at 10.3708, 119.1364. The next 7 km of the trip are the hardest ones. That part was more of a hiking trail than a road one is supposed to drive on. It also was the most scenic part, though: running across the mountain through deep, wild rainforest. Then we met a broader dirt road which we followed to the west for another 20 km until we reached Caruray village.
About halfway through the last leg of the trip (coordinates: 10.3152, 119.0786), we found by chance a very picturesque waterfall, secluded among the thick vegetation by the side of the road. We walked down to it and thought about having a refreshing dip in its pool; although the numerous snakes slithering back and forth across the surface of the pool deterred us in the end. A steep trail by the right side of the falls leads up to a series of other, smaller falls and pools.
The entire route was wonderfully beautiful. We hardly encountered any other vehicles along the way and the few villages we saw were one-family-sized. These settlements were most often surrounded by scenic rice fields. Other than that, and some occasional views of surrounding mountains, everything we saw was but an endless, jungly green. Wildlife was also present aplenty. We saw, and mostly heard, a good deal of peculiar birds. Most excitedly, for the first time in the Philippines, we also ran into a monkey clan!
What to do and see in Caruray
There isn’t much to do and see in Caruray, other than enjoy the incredible beauty of the beach and the authenticity of its inhabitants. We didn’t see any foreigner or any guesthouse in the village and we found only one single local place to eat.
All the villagers were genuinely cordial and happy to greet us, aiming to offer us absolutely nothing in return for money. A ladyboy, who, quite surprisingly for such a small society, went about carelessly, wanted to offer herself for free to my friend Kasper, but she turned her down.
Caruray Beach is a 3-km-long stretch of powder-fine sand bordered by crystal-clear, green and blue waters. It is separated from the village by a river’s estuary through which we needed to wade breast-level. There was absolutely nobody along the entire length of the beach. We only got greeted by many passing-by fishermen who came with their boats in and out from the river mouth. Lush mountain slopes and islets were visible everywhere around. I wouldn’t hesitate to say that this was the most beautiful beach I visited in the Philippines. We had a good swim and moved on.
Across the river mouth from the main beach, there lies another shorter beach. We saw on the map that there is a track through which we could drive there and continue all around the promontory to get back to the main road. This track would have given pains to a goat but we managed to drive until we got down to the beach. There we drove on the sand until the opposite end of the beach, looking for the alleged-on-the-map continuation of the track, but we found no such. So we drove back the same way and reached Port Barton right before sunset.
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