La Finca

My family owns a farm in La Coasta, a more tropical region of Ecuador that borders the coast in some parts. Naturally, I skipped school on Friday, and left thursday night to head to the farm. We (me, two of my friends Hannah and Katie, and my sister) took a night bus at 11:15pm and slept (on and off) all the way to the farm. After changing buses at 7, we finally arrived at our sometime around 8am. But to get to the farm, we had to cross a bridge over the spot where two rivers merged. This i had known, of course, because Mami had drawn me a map of the farm in her spare time. But when she said "bridge," i imagined a more modern type, something secure, stable, etc. Well, I was wrong. We were met with the adventures of Indiana Jones and crossed a bridge of bamboo poles (mostly) tied together about 1 meter wide, and railing on one side. It wasn't too sturdy; the poles moved a lot, and it only could bear enough weight for one person to cross at a time. It was the beginning of a weekend of adventures. 

But vale la pena. It was worth it. And we got better at crossing the bridge. There's really no need to fear if you can swim. Here's a pic right outside my house of the area and my family's red truck. 

The hammock where I spent quite a few hours sleeping. :)

 Our quaint little room. I swear people would pay money to visit this place and stay for a night...

Our house, built on a rock. Symbolic, eh?

 Our means of transportation. Typical.

 Papi took his machete and cut down a yuca tree for the roots. We would soon find that chopping down trees is normal. Like the time when Papi wanted some bananas. Instead of climbing the tree, he just cut it down. But i'm not complaining. I got bananas.

Picking some papayas... 

 Peeling an orange with a machete. Interesting tactic. I prefer a smaller blade

 Our truckbed of fruit and plants for the weekend.

 Mula the mule. yes, mula is the spanish word for mule.

 Ah, yes! the cage of guinea pigs! our family raises guinea pigs. to eat. Its a delicacy here. We had guinea pigs when i was a kid. But i don't recall ever eating them. Although my mom may have been sheltering me...

 My mom uses her machete to herd the cows. A very effective tactic i might add.

 The tree of buttons. Somehow you take the seeds and make buttons. I think I kind of lost a lot of it in translation...

 We also happen to have a mountain side of cocoa trees. No joke. My padres asked us if we wanted to go on a walk. I think the meant a hike. We walked up the side of a mountain looking at all the trees and picking the cocoa, bananas, and other trees we saw fit to cut down. Later i understood why they asked us if we wanted to wait awhile after lunch before going out...

 This is cocoa, believe it or not. It is a fruit, with a sweet fruity flavor. you pop the seeds into your mouth and suck off the membrane/fruit/pulp. Then you set the seeds out to dry. The seeds are what you use to make cocoa. I never would have imagined that this is what cocoa is like! Nor that you spit out the seeds and then make chocolate from them. I'm not too sure about the sanitation...

 A view of a small part of the forest of cocoa.

 Our little piglets. Don't get too attached. They'll probably be in your breakfast really soon!

 Another bridge down the road a ways.

 However, this one is more secure. It even comes with a bit of suspension and concrete supports, and not one but TWO rails! wow. i never thought i'd be jealous. :)

 The church my family attends. We were going to visit it with them, but we didn't make it back in time from the carnival celebration.

 You know how you always joke around with your parents about how you want to put a chair on top of the car and ride up there. Well, here its normal. They have benches on top for riding. So naturally, we sat up there.

 A view from the top!

 Yes, I agree, it was peligroso. But extremely fun!!!

 A pic of what we rode in. The smart people rode on the bottom. We should have known that no one was sitting on top because they thought it was going to rain. And it did. I think i understand why windshields were invented. A car driving at 50miles/hr + rain = ouch. i am thankful for adrenaline.

 Which of these things does not belong... an umbrella, a man in a baseball cap, a dog, a bicycle, or a chicken hanging on a pole?

 The open air market. No refrigeration needed for this meat!

 The local casino. This picture is taken from a far with a lot of zoom. Yes, i feel like a stalker. but its not my fault i am a blond hair, blue eyed girl that sticks out like a sore thumb and gets whistled at! We couldn't really go any closer...

 Dinner anyone?

 Oh I crossed the bridge successfully again. Mami was out of salt, so we volunteered to cross the bridge and buy some on the other side. Here they use more salt than i could ever imagine. Most people buy salt in bags the size of flour bags. And go through them in a couple of weeks. Well, after 15 minutes of searching for the store and getting mixed answers in spanish as to where it was, we finally found it. However, it was locked. And the cousin of the owner said the owner wouldn't be there til april. At least we thought that's what she said. And there was a dead puppy on the porch. So, all in all, it was a fail. But we didn't die on the bridge.

 Saturday, my cousins, age 10,11,13 ish wanted us to go to the water park with them in the afternoon. After much persuasion, we decided to go. It didn't matter that we didn't have bathing suits (how was i to know that there would be a water park?) or that it was raining! But let's just say that we were surprised to find a modern day water park only 10 mins from our farm. I felt like I was at wild rivers! Water slides, saunas, wave pool, playground- they had it all!

 My cousin and I on the slide at the playground

 A view of the park. Maybe we should take a slide from here and replace the bridge at my house....

 Or we could use this bridge!

 The five of us in a photo shoot.

 Then we stopped by a fiesta on the way home at the house of some friend or relative, I'm not really sure. Here they have this week long celebration called Carnival.  It doesn't actually start for another week, but i guess its always okay to have a party! They smeared baby powder on our faces and we had some custom food and drinks. There was some great live music and we had a blast!

 Sunday morning we got up to milk the cows. Mami's boss at milking cows.

 And us? Well, not quite as good.

 Slow and steady wins the race right? hahaha

 And here's about half the milk we got.

 Take a little sugar, cinnamon, and chocolate (that we had made in quito)

 boil it with some water

 Put it in a blender with the milk. Yes, the blender. :)

 And this is what you get...

 An INCREDIBLE cup of hot chocolate- by far the best i've ever, ever tasted. Starbucks is about to go out of business. Well, if i can milk the cow a little faster...

Well, that's about it for the weekend! It was an adventure at every turn. I'm really considering moving to a farm when I grow up. Its so tranquila, as they say here. Time is relative (more than it already was), and life is great! Maybe if i spent less time napping in the hammock and more time working i'd change my mind, but for now a finca is on my list of things to buy. :)