El Nido

History

El Nido Philippines is about 420 kilometers southwest of Manila, and about 238 kilometers northeast of Puerto Princesa, Palawan’s capital.


El Nido Philippines is a top destination for island hopping and marine and wildlife reserve. Scuba diving is also a popular activity here with over 30 dive sites for varying levels and skills, from taking the plunge and learning to dive for the first time, to perfecting your expertise and advancing your qualifications.

El Nido Philippines has over 50 beaches to discover, also find enchanting lagoons with tranquil turquoise-green water, caves that can take you to hidden beaches, and a very diverse variety of wildlife. The limestone cliffs of El Nido were naturally carved out of extensive and thick layers of coralline deposits. They formed 250 million years ago in the shallow sea covering the area that North Vietnam and South China now occupy. These layers slowly rose from the sea as a result of the collision of India and mainland China about 60 million years ago.

About

Poblacion

The El Nido Marine Reserves is a group of islands boasting of natural formations such as limestone cliffs, rainforests, dive sites and white beaches. Because of its extraordinary natural sceneries, El Nido has become one of the Philippines’ top tourist destinations. Its pristine, white beaches are covered in pure white sand topped with crystal-clear waters. El Nido is not only perfect for lazing around the shore, but also for other nature-related activities such as hiking, rock climbing and diving. El Nido offers a picturesque landscape with its blue waters and smooth, spotless sand, as well as its limestone cliffs met by crystalline, blue waters below. A direct flight from Manila to El Nido takes one and a half hours, and a tricycle ride takes tourists from the airport to the desired hotel resort.

 El Nido is named after the edible nests of Swiftlets (Collocalia Fuciphaga) found in the crevices of its limestone cliffs.  These nests, ?nido? in Spanish, are the main ingredient for the gourmet nido soup.El Nido is considered as a showcase of Palawan?s geology and diverse wildlife. Its majestic limestone cliffs stand guard over clear waters, with hundreds of species of tropical fishes and corals, and three species of endangered sea turtles.  El Nido?s forests are host to more than 100 species of birds, a large number of which are endemic to Palawan.

      A balinsasayaw is a bird that is only found in Palawan Island(  a friend of mine told me that a species of this birds are also found somewhere in romblon nesting in a limestone cliffs just like that in El Nido), and is priced for its saliva. Balinsasayaw's turn their salivas into their nest. A kilo of a balinsasayaw's saliva reaches up to 25,000 to 200,000 pesos or US$5,000. Most of the buyers of these exotic foods are Chinese people who make use of them for soups and other delicacies.

Because of the price, lots of people are trying to secure themselves their own balinsasayaw for personal reasons. So the government, swift enough, made a law that only licensed hunters can gather the nest of these birds and it can only be taken after the mating season so that the birds will not use their nest anymore and people can freely gather them without causing any harm to the bird.

It is now one of the reasons why the number of visitors to Palawan increased in the recent years. Everybody wants to see the creatures who make those expensive salivas.

Beach and Island

Lagoon