And the travels continue...

From Popayán on Easter I headed for Pasto, a small unimportant town that simply took me off those dangerous roads before nightfall. Incredibly enough, after for waiting for 2 hours, I actually got on a bus without having to wait 11 more hours. Everyone and their uncle was trying to get out now that the festivities were over! Once in Pasto, I hoped to go out, but yet again my love for sleep prevailed. I awoke with time to walk the town looking for a panadería. Unsuccessfully I returned to check out and head for the bus terminal. I caught a bus to Ipiales, a taxi to the border, walked across back into Ecuador, and bused from Tulcán to Quito. On this last ride, I befriended a fun 9 year-old girl (think Eve Greenwood) and we chatted the whole 6 hours of childish things, friends, food, Rebelde, and then played with my camera. I quite enjoyed her company! For each of these transport transitions I had to wait longer than I hoped, but I still arrived in time to wash my clothes (holy cow, can we say sucia?!), shower, eat, and repack.

I then headed back to Quito (remember, about 1.5 hours each way!) bus terminal where I waited for the 11:30 bus to Bahía de Caráquez on the coast. I arrived at 8 a.m. for the 8:15 tour, but we clearly didn't leave on time. Beach time began. Along with me on the 3-day tour were three others, Anya, Tanya, and Peter, all from Germany. We did decide to do the whole tour in Spanish (and not English), but there was considerable amount of German spoken, too! I loved it! We crossed the bay by boat to San Vicente from where we drove in jeep to the organic farm Río Muchacho.
We stopped occassionally to identify random trees and fruits used for their glue or gel, and we saw fences made from living trees, a much better and more sustainable practice than cutting the trees down to make a fence. In this way one needs fewer resources and can also use them later if needed. We also stopped by the environmental school the farm started for the kids in the region. They learn sustainable practices, utilize dry composting toilets and graywater techniques.



Once on the farm, we got our cabins and lunch! Talk about healthy! Fruits, veggies, legumes, grains galore! We then got a tour of the facilities that blew me away! To start, they plant nearly every fruit and veggie that will grow in the tropical climate. Yuca, bananas, passion fruit, cocoa, pineapple, tomatoes, peanuts, oranges, lettuce, carrots, beans, papaya, corn, onions, coffee, beets, chard, ginger, dill, rosemary, sesame, turmeric, peppers, basil, and many more that I forget! The focus is on self-sustainability, and they sell excesses in the saturday market. They also use more than the fruits--they use dried banana leaves as rope and new banana leaves to wrap a traditional lunch. They reuse plastic 2-Liter bottles for a slow, constant watering system for new trees, which is awesome!


They use a dry compost toilet system that covers excrements in sawdust to eliminate the odor and flies. This compost is then mixed with other animals' faeces, escpecially that of guinea pigs. The guinea pig cages are placed over beds of compost so the faeces fall down, and they are rotated along as needed. They use a graywater system that filters the water and is used over and over first for hands, then clothes, then crops, etc. They even have a place to make and collect biogas from covered compost and solar panels to heat it up! They have a secadora, a solar-powered food drying system in which they have herbs, seasoning, coffee, and chocolate beans! They do use electricity when necessary, but due to the strenuous farm life, most go to bed a few hours after the sun goes down, so not much is used.

Along with tourists, 5-10 volunteers/interns live on the farm at a time. They stay anywhere from 1-6 months and help the 7 or so full-time workers. It is a well-oiled machine, my friends. Also there was a group of 15 students from various tribes in the Amazon region. They are learning primarily how to raise animals rather than simply hunt them, as it is getting harder and harder to move their tribes around freely. Some had never left their villages before, so were hving trouble adjusting. For familiarity and for energy, the week before they had started making the traditional chicha, a drink of super-boiled yuca that is then chewed and spit back into the pot and left to ferment. Yum. Anyway, it was interesting to chat with one of their teachers about their experiences. After an hour's rest (you think, why do we need a rest--we haven't done anything? But the sun is HOT and sucks the energy right outta ya'!), we ate dinner and rested a bit more. All the bowls are ceramic, and the cups and spoons are made out of 'mate', a gourd that falls from the trees along the road.


After dinner we got a bunch of dried chocolate beans and picked out the bad ones. We then cooked the good ones over a wood stove until the color changed and the shelled the bean inside. These we then ground, and let me tell you--it's hard work! But after we had all taken a turn, the guides helped us out like the pros they are and we then cooked the cacao with milk, water, and sugar to make a great chocolate sauce we spread over sliced bananas. It was fantastic! We all went to bed shortly thereafter, and as you can see from the previous picture, my bunk was the one closest to the roof. Earlier we had been told to close the screen door at night, not to keep mosquitos out but rather bats. Well, our bat clearly entered from another opening because that door was closed all day! At 6 a.m. I heard it enter and fly abover my head (quickly covered with blankets) and land on the ceiling. Though I didn't scream, I panicked a little and eventually turned around under the covers so as to be able to get down the ladder as quickly as possible. I got down and the bat didn't fly around anymore, but at breakfast when I told Anya and Tanya, they didn't believe me! Until, that is, they saw droppings on their beds and they saw it hanging from the ceiling later that afternoon directly above my bed! So those were Day 1's adventures on the farm!