11feat sanvicente

The Next Pride of Palawan One Philippine beach town is toeing the green line before

tossing up tourist-filled resorts. JENINNE LEE-ST. JOHN

lives to tell the tale of why you should visit sustainable San Vicente—just not too many of you, please.

PHOTOGRAPHED BY RICHARD MARKS

102

“Are you sure you want us to take the door off the plane, mam?”

Marissa, the mayor’s assistant, asked me after our truck had skidded onto the airstrip and discharged us directly under the wing of a six-seater Cessna surrounded by no fewer than a dozen downright jovial people waiting partly to help but mostly to watch us take flight.

Uh, definitely. In fact, there’s no way we’re getting in that plane unless the door is off. We want to stick our heads out over the ocean. We require a doorless Cessna.

Out came the power tools and off came the door. Being able to risk your life with such easy abandon is one of the thrills of charting the lesser-visited reaches of the WildWild-West Philippines, but it’s also a perk of being an official guest of a mayor eager for you to properly see all the unspoiled paradisiacal potential her town could unlock if only the right eco-minded developers snapped up the keys. Palawan Island is probably on your go-to list (if you haven’t been there already), but I doubt you’ve heard of San Vicente, San Vic to locals and the initiated— and that’s partly because the mayor hasn’t wanted you to.

If that sounds counterintuitive, I should explain that this mayor, savvy and super green, is one Maria Carmela “Pie” Alvarez, who in 2010 became the youngest person ever elected to that post in the Philippines, at 21, while wrapping up her bachelor’s in international business administration with concentrations in environmental

Just one of San Vicente’s undeveloped shorelines.

OPPOSITE: Parking, Exotic Island-style.

FROM LEFT: Said the plane to the longtail boat, let's race!; spearfishing net profits, on Exotic Island; northwestern Palawan by plane; hamming it up on Long Beach.

technology and global marketing management at Babson College across the globe in Boston. After graduation, she took over a municipality that, despite sitting between Palawan’s capital, Puerto Princesa, and the resort-filled karsts of El Nido, was and remains almost entirely undeveloped—only 10,000 tourists visited in 2014. See, no one wants it to become another Boracay. Rather, Pie’s got a master plan for a self-sustaining, eco-friendly beach haven that will maximize San Vic’s hit list: the country’s longest continuous stretch of seashore (the 14.7 kilometer aptly named Long Beach); 22 lovely outlying islands and their marine sanctuaries teeming with dolphins, dugongs and turtles; butterfly, bird and bat refuges; plus waterfalls, mangroves and the Puerto Princesa Underground River, a unesco World Heritage Site and one of the New 7 Wonders of Nature.

We launched our San Vicente immersion one sunny morn in a speedboat from Pagdanan Bay on the northern edge of a fishing village, zooming out towards Exotic Island. Any lethargic muddleheadedness I’d had due to the early hour was zapped on the approach by the sheer, shiny beauty of the place. The crisp waters overlapped in maybe 37 jewel-toned hues between one rocky, forested isle and our destination, Exotic, with a white-sand bib to

which the anchors of a handful of rainbow-colored paraws were tethered like charms on a necklace. We puttered up on a sandbar and I needed a moment before I could disembark. I realized that I had wanted to be in this exact spot my entire life and had never known it.

A childlike expedition of the island saw us clambering over striped shale and zigzagged rocks. Some guys were spearfishing in the coral with one hand-hewn spike; our intrepid photographer, Richard, grabbed a mask and swam out to join them. I splashed around with two little girls among the outriggers and then bathed in the sun until our captain rustled us to depart for the next stop.

I was sad, but for naught. Because the next stop was even better. German Island. A perfect promontory of sand, ringed by coral and topped by a little gazebo, a big grill and woven palm hammocks strung between the tree trunks, four in a row. In the sun it’s hot and bright, in the shade it’s cool and breezy, and how the place manages a natural 10-degree temperature swing is beyond me. As we pulled in, captain pointed out a sea turtle chilling in the water; while on land, we played with the cleanest beach puppies you’ll ever have the pleasure to cuddle.

Our third isle of this hop was called Paradise—a bit of a stretch as it is just a wee patch of sand dripping off a hill of rocks, but I was glad we’d gone there last because it made it slightly easier to head back to the mainland.

As did the allure of that doorless Cessna. Richard conferred with the pilot about the ideal seat so as to get the best shots but also not to die. That the plane needs a shockingly brief taxi is good news, since the runway, now 1.4 kilometers, is still only half built. Then we were up in the sky, circling south over the three islets we had

TO READ THE REST OF THE ARTICLE IN OUR CURRENT ISSUE,.

SUBSCRIBE TO TRAVEL+LEISURE SOUTHEAST ASIA..

SUBSCRIBE NOW

TO OUR DIGITAL EDITION

1 year / 12 issues for US$29.99.

Available at www.zinio.com/TravelandLeisureAsia

powered by