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Hello from our family here in on the western slopes of the Andes. No we haven’t been affected by the recent volcano eruption. That has caused havoc in the town we spent April in, Banos. We were very close to it there, and are hoping all is okay there.
La Hesperia is an organic farm/conservation center that is located in the cloud forest about 2 hours away from Quito toward the coast. It is a large plot of land that was once owned by a Spanish contessa, later by a Czechoslovakian consulate and was later bought with the idea of saving the primary cloud forest and demonstrating that organic farming could be sustainable. Every day the clouds roll in from the coast and frequently dump huge amounts of rain on the area. Right now we are in the transition time between the wet and dry seasons, so it is hard to tell when and how hard it is going to rain. There is a regular coming and going of volunteers to help run the agricultural/forestry side of things and enjoy the natural beauty of the cloud forest. There are currently approx. 12 volunteers here from Canada, the U.S., Britain and
Germany, as well as one Ecuadorian. Many are between Master’s and Ph.D.s in Biology or Conservation-type degrees. The kids have loved it, as the volunteers range from 19 to 26, so they can buddy with them. Lots of laughter and camaraderie. It’s been a great blend of different personalities.
Every morning after breakfast the tasks for the day are outlined and divided up amongst us. All of us have done things that are completely new for us and we have joined into a volunteer community that has a real family feel to it.
Food here is good and fairly varied and the accommodations are camp-like, but sufficient. We wash our clothes by hand and mostly take cold showers, though there is one hot shower available if you want to walk up to another part of the farm.
So far, we have worked a lot with machetes to clear a roads, gardens and walking paths, helped build a small bridge on the walking path, weeded and planted in both a vegetable and a medicinal garden, planted some native plants in small bags, picked oranges, bananas and yuccas, participated in the process of harvesting and preparing coffee all the way
from bush to fresh ground coffee, played in the weekly soccer game with the workers (wow, those guys are serious!), and tried to avoid getting eaten alive by the mosquitoes and black flies! There is one field that is just being planted with 3 different fruit trees, maize, beans and coffee, all in one area, so that has taken up some time and hard work. It’s all by hand, there’s no tractor here. Even all lawn is cut by machete (One gas weed-eater is sometimes used) Anyone care to donate a tractor? Mind you, when the pig escapes, he eats some of the lawn/garden, anything he can find!
Every day Lisa loads up the donkey with 2 jugs (about 34 ltrs total) of fresh milk from the cows and heads down the mountain for a half hour walk to deliver the milk to the milkman, which is a work truck that shows up, measures the milk and dumps it into a larger jug again. No refridgeration in this process! She then rides the donkey back up the hill. A couple of mornings she tried actual milking a cow (so did Katrina and Dave) to get the milk. Fortunately they
have one milking machine and several other, much more experienced farmhands; otherwise there wouldn’t have been much milk! Strong fingers and technique are the trick to milking! Lisa also gets to feed the chickens, give milk to baby cows, and just generally be around farm animals. Just as Steven was in heaven at the animal rescue center, Lisa is in heaven here.
Katrina has been helping with the newly-opened Montessori school that just started this week here at La Hesperia (only pre-school kids so far), as well as helping in the gardens and she enjoys making bread. There are various other food-related jobs to do, making jam, picking bananas and making butter. Steven has had lots of fun studying the butterflies, moths, ants, tarantulas and birds. One of the volunteers here is staying 6 months and is a serious birder, so he has rekindled Dave’s interest in birds and started Steven’s.
There are lots of trails, hikes, waterfalls on the property, and we’ve had a great time on some of them. Trying to stand under a powerful waterfall is an incredible experience, and about 5 seconds is enough! One night Steven camped out with a school group from
Quito that was visiting La Hesperea. He managed to survive, despite the rain and constant talking during the night from all the children. One day was so hot we all jumped into the local lagoon to cool off. All in all, it is a new, interesting and very friendly environment to be in for 3 weeks. We get weekends off to do more touristy things in Ecuador and recuperate from all the physical labour during the week.
One weekend our family travelled by bus to the famous Quilotoa Lagoon, a huge, water-filled crater formed from an erupting volcano many years ago. It took about 5 hours by bus to arrive there, which, at 4000 meters, is one of the highest tourist places to visit in Ecuador. That evening there was a hail storm, which left the ground white with unmelted ice pellets. It was the only place in Ecuador where we have had to use a wood stove to heat our room. The room price included 2 wonderful meals, prepared by an indigenous family who owned the hostel. The crater itself was beautiful and we hiked down and back up the next morning (which was more difficult than usual
due to the altitude!). We decided to take a different route back to La Hesperia which meant an extra couple of hours on the bus and an exhilarating ride down from 4000 m to approx sea level on a highway being built/improved most of the way down. At least the roughness of the road meant the bus couldn’t speed quite as much. We also passed through kilometre after kilometre of banana and coconut plantations in the lowlands that are the other important foreign currency earners for Ecuador (besides oil).
We are quickly coming to feel at home here in the cloud forest. As we walk along the road to our volunteer house, our way lit by the flashing fireflies, we marvel at how lucky we are to be able to pick oranges and bananas, make ground coffee from scratch, see toucans, butterflies and tarantulas and enjoy such a great bunch of people, all here in the same place in the depths of Ecuador.
After this it’s our cruise in the Galapagos, so completely different. Then we’ll go explore the south of the country, the city of Cuenca, nearly 500 years old and a UNESCO world heritage site, and more towns,
including one where people live to a very old age, so lots of hippies have settled around there, trying to cash in on the secret!
I get sad when I think our trip is going to end, because we’re together so much here, and I know the next few years will start to draw the kids away in different directions. But I also think of things at home, like taking a hot bath, sitting on a comfy couch, having a washing machine. Seeing family and friends becomes more urgent to us as time passes too. 6 months is just about right, and we will see you all soon!
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