Travel Guide Sabang

Travellers usually leave Puerto Princesa in a hurry for Sabang, where they can discover the famous Puerto Princesa Subterranean River National Park. Sabang is a small seaside village, 77 kilometers from Puerto Princesa, with a magnificent mountainous landscape. James Cameron even shot some scenes fromAvatar here. But Sabang is above all the starting point for a visit to the spectacular underground river (formerly known as the Saint-Paul River), 8 kilometers long and part of a national park. Created in 1997, the park covers 5,753 ha of land and 292 ha of seabed. Its highest point is Mount Saint-Paul (1,028 m). The national park is home to a tropical rainforest with a wide variety of trees and animals. Over 150 species of multicolored birds can be seen, as well as macaques (the only omnivorous Philippine monkey), the binturong, reptiles, squirrels and monitor lizards, which clean the forest and feed on fruit and insects. At the heart of this protected site is the underground river. Carved out of the mountain, it is made up of caverns and bristling with stalagmites and stalactites. As you drift through the tunnel, you'll feel as if you've travelled to the center of the Earth: it's spectacular!