Dschungelblog!

After weeks of silence from our side we managed to buy a few minutes of reliable internet about 25 km away from the farm where we´re staying right now! But let´s start with the end of the last report:

After leaving Vilcabamba about four weeks ago we took a bus through the highlands (again) to make our way to the coast, we were longing for after weeks in the Andes. Looking out of the bus window most of the time to enjoy the great and ever-changing scenery we were distracted by some strange people coming in. Mostly they are trying to sell you something from food to homemade gifts and creams and so on. Once we also had a grandpa with a huge cock under his arm that was screaming frequently to wake everybody in the bus up!! We´ll never know if his destination was one of the still practised cock-fights or if it was the soup of the owner…

Next stop was Alamor a tiny town still in the mountains where I had a funny and somehow disgusting experience: there were two large complete chicken feet sticking out of the soup I got for dinner!! But as a hard east german girl who is used to eating what´s on the table I managed to eat the soup around and leave them in ;-)

After such a nice evening meal we felt strong enough the next day to make a trip to the petrified forrest of Puyango which is one of only three worldwide. Millions of years ago it was hit by lava and the big trees were instantly petrified and broke into huge pieces some time afterwards. Those pieces can still be seen and the guide said that the area is not yet fully researched and they expect to find dinosaurs there as well. Will they be thrown into a soup, too?? Who knows! The way back from the forrest at midday was less enchanting: 37 degrees and no cloud in sight, huge birds drawing their circles in the skye waiting for us to collapse and be their food. But when we didn´t believe in it anymore, the road finally showed up and we could take a bus home.

Next day was Guayaquil Ecuador´s biggest city which is said to be full of crime and nothing worth seeing. We didn´t expect much and were totally surprised that we found a cool city with nice people and some great areas!! Nice surprise! Went to the cinema there for an english-speaking film with spanish subtitles (it was said!!). The film was russian with spanish subtitles… But we made it and were proud of ourselves that we understood what it was all about!

The weekend was spent at Montañita a prototypical surfing village with more surfers and tourists than inhabitants - not very exciting except from the possibility to make fun of all those cool surfing guys with their muscles and no brains ;-))

Then we finally made it to Bahía de Caraquez the starting point for our journey to the Río Muchacho Organic Farm where we were to work for the next four weeks. The owner of the farm is a somehow esoterical guy who has this guru called Sai Baba from india and who plans work on the farm after the phases of the moon!! Very interesting. The farm itself looks like a great whole little world in the beginning. Everybody is nice to each other, animals are only used for their excrements and eggs and milk but not eaten, and everybody seems happy. After a few weeks there now we saw what´s going on behind the scenes and know that not everything is working well. Even the animal world is not as whole as it seemed! Apparently the chicken are the worst-off on the farm and are at the end of the food chain for dogs as well as pigs!! We´ve seen a pig catching and eating a chicken more than once!!!!!

But however, the idea is great and I think in ecuadorian terms they try their best. But the german psychologists already have an evaluation questionnaire in mind that would help to gather ideas for improvement from all the volunteers who work there. A typical day on the farm starts at 6.45 with a weekly changing morning duty. You either feed cows, horses, guineapigs, pigs, chicken or help in the kitchen. Then its breakfast and then you work until noon in the vegetable garden. Then after lunch everybody has an own project, Heiko and me prepare a garden with medicinal plants for the local school children and tourists to be guided through. The morning duties sometimes suck because they are not as nice as they initially sound: just feeding and cleaning the animals. The pigs really stink!!!! and the grass for the guineapigs (am I pronouncing that right??) is extremely sharp and there are hundreds of ticks in it waiting for their fresh blood every morning… just to name a few annoyances! However, we still like it and enjoy most of the time! Think this is a once in a lifetime experience. Don´t expect that I´ll be chasing little pigs or feeding and milking cows very often in my later life.

Ok, that shall be it for today, the air condition in here is freezing me to death if I don´t go out into the sun soon! We both wish you all a great Christmas and New Year and hope you enjoy yourselves!! Take care! We´ll think of you when we have our new years cocktail on the beach ;-)

Romy & Heiko