{"id":2043,"date":"2013-12-16T10:00:05","date_gmt":"2013-12-16T18:00:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/tillthemoneyrunsout.com\/?p=2043"},"modified":"2015-04-11T15:05:27","modified_gmt":"2015-04-11T22:05:27","slug":"el-nido-the-nest","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tillthemoneyrunsout.com\/el-nido-the-nest\/","title":{"rendered":"El Nido Palawan \u2013 The Nest"},"content":{"rendered":"

After our Tao boat trip <\/a> ended in El Nido Palawan we kidnapped one of our ship-mates and rode off into the night on a trike (or motorbike with a complicated side car thing attached) to a hotel. The sun had already set and riding down the dark and bumpy road I felt the island life slipping further and further away as I faced the big city. <\/p>\n

We woke up the following morning expecting to feel like an overwhelmed country mouse. Instead it was quickly obvious that we were actually in a very small and laid back tourist town. A town nestled between dramatic limestone cliffs and a beautiful little crescent shaped bay, and filled in with ropy vines and beautiful orchids and jungle plants in between. I was overjoyed to discover that we were unquestionably still firmly entrenched in the island life. <\/p>\n

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Isn\u2019t it funny how relative it all is? El Nido Palawan sure seemed big after seeing nothing but fishing villages and deserted isles for a few days. <\/p>\n

The first thing we noticed when we went down to the beach were the clouds of little swallows that were swooping across the water at regular intervals. The unique shape of their wings and sort of unusual flight pattern actually made us think we were seeing bats going home to their caves in the early morning light. It turns out that we weren\u2019t that far off. <\/p>\n

The swallows, or swiftlets, of El Nido actually use a simple form of echolocation to navigate in total darkness through the caves where they roost at night and breed. So they were just waking up and leaving their caves instead of returning to them. <\/p>\n

Hmmm, do you think the swiftlets and bats high-five each other as they pass in the early evenings and mornings? Do you think they see themselves as workers at the same job, but on opposite shifts? They do both fly about eating insects. Maybe they give each other advice as they pass in the caves. <\/p>\n

Hey Leonardo! Check out the cricket nest by the south side of the bay, it was off the hook today!<\/p>\n

El Nido actually means \u201cThe Nest\u201d and is named after the nests that these little birds build. These edible nests are the main ingredient for Chinese Bird\u2019s Nest Soup and sell for about US $3,000 per kilogram! <\/p>\n

These uber luxurious (and apparently delicious) nests are built entirely from threads, or strands of the bird\u2019s gummy saliva, which hardens when exposed to air. Chinese traders have been regularly visiting the area of El Nido to buy these edible birds’ nests for basically forever. According to the Internet, El Nido was specifically mentioned in Chinese records as far back 1225 CE.<\/p>\n

I seem to have lost the gummy thread of my story but you gotta admit, the whole bird\u2019s nest history is pretty amazing.<\/p>\n

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