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Published: December 2nd 2006
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We eventually arrived at Riomuchacho farm a bit shell shocked after our long and winding bumpy journey and got straight into the course making a bacteria culture for the land, with our 8 other fellow students, there are also around 20 other volunteers, this made for a lively farm with plenty going on.
We were given one of the best accomodations, a bamboo house on stilts with a resident fruit bat and tree frog that overlooked a stream (a river in the winter) which you could go down to and catch fat pink prawns if you brought your net and patience.
The farm was a very noisy place roosters would be cockledooing at 4am in the morning that would set the pigs off and then the whole farm would begin a new day. There are banana trees and papaya trees all around and it feels like being in the jungle it is cloudy most of time but it is very humid and there are so many bugs, big spiders scorpians cockroaches the size of half your hand every biting fly possibly known to Keri as they always like nibbling her, the fire flies were amazing at night though with there little
orange and white glow.
We'd have to get up at 6am and either muck out the pigs whilst playing Bach to them kind of calming for them and they were less likely to bite your ankles. Other jobs included doing the same without music for the guinea pigs, cows chickens and horses or preparing breakfast with the cooks. That would lead us upto breakfast at 7.30 where we would have an amazing tropical fruit salad made from maraquia a sour kind of passion fruit, papaya passion fruit, water melon pineapple and a sausage fruit, looking very much like a large german sausage which we named as an in joke the amazing talking sausage fruit which was just a bit of sillyness much to all our amusement, the heat and bugs may have got to us on most occasions.
Everyone here has been so friendly Nicola and Daria the inspirational creators of the farm Juanita Nora and Margarita the very important cooks that constantly supplied us with yum organic generally vegeterian food made from vegeys from the garden. Highlights included 100 ways of preparing Yucca most favourite being the Yucca mash oh yeh! and the yucca fried balls with a cheese
middle. Norah made some real treats also banana friters with a syrup. Food was very wholesome and we looked forward greatly to the menu having some form of protein that wasn't peanuts. Occasionally we'd get sardines cheese, eggs and very small pieces of chicken but the cooks were always tantalising us with this proposition.
Other lovelies were Priscilla 6 years old Juanita's granddaughter, carlos, ben and Oscar the gardeners, Perla and florita the dogs with much character and Alfieta the Sloath, what an amazing animal Nocternal upside down animal that likes climbing trees and has to eat upside down because it has an upside down digestive system.
The course has been brilliant and both Keri and i have enjoyed the experience of being here, we have had three good teachers serbio miguel and Havavi. They all have there owns farms. Serbio has an organic farm where he keeps bees and grows rice , Miguel has been working in the galapagos islands on ecological projects and Havavi specialises in Organic seed saving and develops local networks for this. They all follow Permaculture techniques basically the use of sustainable permanent culture with the least impact on the environment. He also has great knowledge to the origins of plants from around the world. He was a very passionate man who really cared about his Country so was involved in a lot of ecolgical projects. Unfortunately there is a lot of unhealthy agricultural practice in Ecuador left over by the Spanish Colonies of slash and burning land. This leaves land baron and succeptible to erosion, they do it to increase land fertility as it creates carbon and nitrogen deposits which dissapear quickly so land is left erroded, this is where Rio mucha cho comes in as it tries to encourage good argricultural practice it has also developed an ecological school which also helps teach young people and families good practice, offering farming incentives and helps families develop ecological business. Rio Mucha cho has successfully helped families involved in the environmentally unsustainable shrimp industry which have lost jobs because of this and developed recycled paper making projects which have become very successful.
Activities on the farm:
We have been very very lucky to make chocolate from scratch, roasting the cocoa beans from the pod over a hot fire then blending these through a bench blender with raw sugar cane. This comes out as 100% proof chocolate and when tasting it is quite a buzz. From this point you blend this with milk and you make a chocalate sauce which you can solidify. We served it with bananas and it was the most yum experience ever, it made our heads buzz it was so strong, unfortunately folks we couldn't take chocalate sauce with us on our travels although it would have been a good idea and perk er uper when needed.
We have done some horse treking to see the howling monkey forest, this was a great day although it started dramatically with Keri's horse Rory an large alpha male rearing on two legs like something out of the Lone ranger Keri held on and survived the ordeal we swopped horses on the way back so she had my horse Rene who was far to small for me as my legs were neally touching the ground and i looked rather like Don Quoti. We arrived at the howling monkey forest and were greated by the howling monkey grandmother of the monkey forest. She was an old lady of she thought 84, apparently people checked this and found out she was actually 94, and in good shape! She owned the forest, she has been pushed by her sons to burn the forest and use it as agricultural land she is decided not to as she likes people visiting her and wanting to see her howling monkeys as she is about 2 hours trek from the farm on horse back in the middle of know where. The farm crosses her palms with silver when people come to visit as an incentive to keep the monkey forest.
There are around 30 monkeys and we saw one pack who thought we were interesting as they started howling at us repeatedly and throwing sticks at us back so we all howled back. This went on for a while, two monkey tribes having it out with each other how interesting our monkeys! On the way back we found a lagoon to swim in with a waterfall to wash the days ticks off (oh yeh everyday we would have ticks a good way of taking them out without leaving the heads in your skin was to pull them out anti clockwise.)
Canoe trip to the Mangroves Isla de Corizon
This was a great day went to see the salt magroves in the estuary these are now protected although alot of damage has been done in the last 20 years with deforesting these sea water forests . Around 95% of the mangroves have disappeared due to the farming of shrimp and deforestation this has upset the local ecology of the estuary. You'd be glad to know that they are beginning to replant some of these. We visited the isla Corizon a heart shaped mangrove with a colony of frigate birds the ones with red bloating necks in breading season. We canoed write through mangrove passage ways which were thick tunnels of magrove. You could see crabs holes all around, red crabs up trees and popping clams within the woodland. They are amazing trees as they can live in very salty water in the mud.
We finished our Rio Mucha cho experience in Quito visiting an organic farm and said farewell to new found friends and are now on our travels throughout Ecuador, will catch you all soon for the next blog pete and keri experience.
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