Transportations, Inspirations and Foundations

I was going to call this post "Setting Up Camp", because that's what the last two weeks were planned as. But as anyone who has ever been to this country (or been in contact with anyone from this country) knows, plans are not only made to be changed, but destined to be. And so did ours... 

Our time in Puerto Princesa was divided into the must-dos and want-to-dos - something like a work-life-balance? We spent half the time catching our breath and catching up on "work" (such as phone calling and blogging) and the other half driving around from one corner of town to another, filling our trunk with goodies from various hardware stores.

Our choice of venues for our leisurely shopping spree.

Our Beast being christened with a heavy load.

Our want-to-do was a trip to the Department of Agriculture to meet a friend of a friend who runs the organic farm there. What a place! Even though it isn't really the greenest season right now, the edible landscaping, herb gardens and beds of all kind of vegetables looked delectable. Mo especially was inspired by the trellis walkway covered in upo, a gourd.
Our conversations took us from soil conditioning to pesticides to educational programs at the DA and the many uses of wood vinegar. We left with many bottles of fermented stuff and smokey smelling liquids.

Mo's inspiration - a walkway covered in gourds.

Edible landscaping. In other words, a sexy vegetable garden.

With a couple of hundred kilos of supplies in our truck, we s.l.o.w.l.y made our way to El Nido and got there just in time to meet the group of workers that would be around for the next weeks and watch the sun go down.

Now, the main reason why this entry is no longer called "Setting Up Camp", is that although we spent the next days driving around from A to B, picking up our life in boxes that we had stored and sent, buying water and food in town and even getting two tanks of gas for our burners - up to today this well planned camp has not yet been set up. In the first days, our "reasons" (yes, we admitt now that they were excuses) was that we hadn't gotten all our stuff together yet and that we always seemed to finish our errands so late, that we decided not to want to set up camp in the dark (yeah, right).
Instead, we reinhabited our tuka in our home away from home, and were once again adopted by our Tao family. And after the first nights of saying "tomorrow we'll get camp set up...", we accepted that that was just going to happen some other day and that's fine too. And with a place such as this and people such as these here at Tao, who would blame us.

And then that morning came... that very early morning. We met with our architect and he handed over the final drawing - which we scribbled on immediately, of course. 

Early morning excitement. Happy homebuilders.

The spot we had chosen for our first little home was on top of a little elevation, to which a path had to be cleared through the vastly spread buho, skinny bamboo that sprouts and spreads on slash and burn land.  

A "hike" up our "hill".

"From here... to here?"

"I think if we face it that way, we'll have the morning sun in our eyes"

Before any construction is started, it is Filipino tradition to make an offering to the land to appease the spirits and ensure the work will be done right and safely. This requires blood to be spilled, quite literally. Though it did take us some time to find a live chicken, a good friend showed up just in time with a very relaxed white hen, happily dozing away in a plastic bag - I believe she had already accepted her fate and saw it as an honor.

Pa-dugo was done in all four corners of the building site and our workers had a good lunch afterwards. 

Offering.

Thank you, chicken.

And then the work began. With such speed that after only leaving for about an hour, the plot was staked out, the scaffolding had gone up and the holes for our posts were being hacked into the rocky ground.

Posts.

Staking it out.

Planing.

Construction site, island style.

Oh the joys of building. Coming in every morning to see yet another step completed, to find yet another little issue we hadn't accounted for, to request another adjustment and marvel at the skeleton of wood that will someday (soon!) be our house. We had never had to make decisions about sanding sealer or varnish before or wonder about the width of that one post and if it will withstand the gusty winds up there. Challenging and surprisingly fun!

Our Beast was also challenged, having to haul heavy wooden posts, mountains of rice hull and a giant load of cement and marine ply wood that threathened to lift us off the front tires. She did good.

Meanwhile, at the bottom of our hill, our little farm started sprouting with the help of our caretaker and his family, who do have green thumbs and are slowly getting into our organic ideas. 

Since it's too windy for seaweed farming, they used their net to plant string beans.

Beating the birds to the chili harvest.

Kalabasa. Pumpkin.

Our rice hull happily carbonizing.

And finally, on a sunny windstill day, we got to explore the reefs in front of Sibaltan. Corals galore. Schools of squid. And we saw something big breach the surface, something beautiful... our very first manta ray! 

Somewhere beneath this glass surface is our manta.

And so our days go by. Wake up, take our morning walk to Dipnay, San Fernando, where our Beast awaits the errands of the day and at the end of the day (usually via a dark and damp boat ride), return to our other kind of camp in our other kind of home. Our tents and hammocks will be hung and our camp kitchen set up soon enough - the construction is flying - and we are excited for that first night on Roots soil. Many other developments are being dug out, set up and planted... More on that next time!

Full moon rising.

Working hard (and horizontal) on what's next :)