la vida en la finca

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Back to computers, cars, and travel blogs. We´ve just finished a tremendous week of hard labor and good eatings. There were 4 of us travelling friends helping out three local people that run this farm way up in the mountains from town (4 wheel or two feet only to get there). Most of our week consisted of clearing a field to plant corn in, moving soil from one place to another, and digging holes and weeding around baby trees. In between digging, there was the constant reward of this incredible view of the town below and the surrounding mountains. I liked to imagine how the food we were helping to grow someday would go down there and they´d make a great almuerzo with it.
We realized last Wednesday that the following day was Thanksgiving- how appropriate! The local people had just showed us how they planted corn that day. There were two of us girls from the states that were prepared to give them all a proper first Thanksgiving. Four locals (one of them was just there to detox for a week away from the city), our own Scotsman, and a lovely German named Freeder were all in for a treat.
Of course we had an activity- each one of them made "hand" turkey drawings. We made sweet popcorn balls, cabbage salad, bruchetta, peach cobbler, shephards pie, fresh oranges- and a big portion of all our food was picked that day. (Are you hungry yet?)It was so nice to go out to the garden and pick our dinner each day. Among other things grown in the garden there was corn, broccoli, cauliflower, peppers, beans, oranges, limes, onions, and an incredible herb garden to make "horchata" tea. We also had our first taste that night of "Leche de Tigre." It´s a drink made of the local licor- Aguardiente (muy fuerte, clear, usually comes in a water bottle- wouldn´t want to mix up the two on a long hike), and milk from the cow just behind the house. It wasn´t until we came down from the farm that we found out Thanksgiving wasn´t until the next week. But ours was just right.
Stevie and I are finally (I think) heading into Peru tonight for more adventures. We´ve got some great reccomendations for places to visit and might even try a week of refresher Spanish.
Much love to you in your part of the world.....

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Photos

Thanksgiving Dinner
Ecuadorian style

Hand Turkey Drawing
Vicente and Gonzalo hard at work creating their turkey art

Give thanks for good company
People of the farm, Stevie took the pic

farm ducks of cuteness
These were our buddies- four ducks with two babies, a couple chickens, and a rooster.

View of Town
Work Break, Vilcabamba and San pedro

Moth Friend
Rescued from certain squishing

Hummingbird´s Nest
About 7 feet from the computer I am sitting at right now- amazing to see this little bugger wizz by.

Comments

[Dad]

reminds me
reminds me of Dominica (small island) in Caribbean, watching humming bird ouside my hotel window. love, Stevie's Dad