Farming Ecuadorian Style

Hey ya'll!  Sorry I'm a little behind on my posts, I've made it a goal to get caught up this week.

So...LAST weekend (8/25-26) we journeyed to the countryside of Ecuador to Rosa's parents' farm or La Finca.  The drive was my favorite yet, absolutely beautiful landscapes.  It's so tough to capture via camera but this trip involved lots of cloud-covered hills and mountains.  Gorgeous.

Things that wouldn't happen in America: we came across a case of Iced Tea that had fallen off a truck.  Hugo stopped the bus, grabbed the tea, and we all had a refreshing drink for the last half hour of the trip.  Good find.

It was quite warm all weekend and immediately upon arrival we went to the river that runs through town.  There's a great spot to swim and lots of locals come here to bathe--soap, shampoo and all.

There were high rocks next to the swimming spot, so of course I wanted to jump.  Don't worry Mom, I checked the depth first (probably around 9 feet) and made sure to jump out far enough to clear the rocks :)  I was thrilled.

Apparently this used to be the bridge for cars over the river.  Hugo said he used to drive the bus across it.  Considering 1 step onto it caused the whole thing to swing, I'm glad they've built a new one.

As we were driving over the new bridge we saw a traditional Ecuadorian car wash.

After our swim we stopped by Rosa's sister's house.  Carmen runs a small bar and restaurant so we passed around a Pilsener (Ecuador's finest brew) and got to know her.  Pictured here is her husband Lucio who is a fish farmer by trade.  He also climbs trees to knock down delicious fruit called Guaba.  They're the long things hanging from the branches.  You peel them open and much like pea pods there are maybe 10-15 little cotton ball looking pieces of fruit.

Here's the Guaba after it pops out of the pod.  The texture is very much like cotton and it's a little weird when it hits the palate.  It's very sweet though, quite delicious.

Here's the seed that's left after you suck off all the fruit.  It comes out perfectly clean.  There's a Spanish expression, "Tan limpia como pepa de guaba."  It literally translates to "As clean as the seed of a guaba" and means you're completely broke.  You can also split the seed and wear it as an earring.  Classy.

Here's Lucio at the pools where he breeds Tilapia.  There are probably 10 pools in all.  It takes 3-4 months for a fish to be at full size.  He just pulled out 2.5 kilos for us to take back to the restaurant for lunch the next day.

More pictures of me, mom.  You're welcome!

Here's Hugo holding one of the Tilapia and Carmen and Lucio's son Joseph in the background.  He's also an expert tree climber.

Lucio also has several dairy cattle below his fish farm.  We tried our hands at milking.  The milk was delicious--best I've had yet in Ecuador.  The milk in the markets passes a weird pasteurization process and doesn't taste right.  This was wonderfully fresh.  We also tried beer with frozen milk used as an ice cube.  Surprisingly good!  I like the tradition of passing around beer every place we go.

After dinner we tried to go to a festival up the road but it was already shutting down around 10 p.m. so we opted to head back to the restaurant run by Susana, another of Rosa's sisters, to play cuarenta, listen to music, and have a few beers.  My kind of night!

The next morning we had breakfast and headed up to the farm.  It's quite the hike!  1 hour up steep switchbacks.  Rosa told us that they had to go down to the village every day for school, come back up for lunch, back down to school, and up in the afternoon.  The path is lined with plants that all serve special functions and Rosa taught us about all of them.  Plants that serve for cuts, nausea, hydration, any remedy you can think of.  The knowledge has been passed down for generations and there are many Ecuadorians in the area that use exclusively plant remedies as cures.

Señor Proaño's main exports from the farm are cacao (the red variety pictured here), yuca (kind of like potatoes) and coffee.  He also grows sugar cane, bananas, pineapple, oranges, guaba, and papaya.  I'm sure I'm forgetting others, it seemed like every tree had a different fruit and he knows where everything is.

Here's Rosa holding a cracked open yellow variety of cacao.  I now understand why the Mindo Chocolate Makers collect the juice during fermentation.  The white fruit around the cocoa bean is incredible, easily my favorite fruit I tasted on the farm.  It's tough to separate from the bean.  Basically you just suck on it until it loses its flavor then spit it out.  There are about 30 beans in a cacao.  I went through 2.  There is zero chocolate flavor, props to the Aztecs for figuring out how to process the bean.

I did some tree climbing of my own!  This is another variety of Guaba.  Flatter pods, but the same fruit inside.

The machete, tool of choice on the farm.  All the work is done by hand, they don't even have tractors.  Even if they did you couldn't navigate the rows with one.  Everything is bunched close together to maximize shade.

The yuca plants are fun.  You just yank them out of the ground and there are 7ish on each root.  Here's Dan looking victorious after pulling a plant.

The yuca plant itself is made up of sticks about the diameter of a quarter.  This is a game you can play with the machete.  You hold the knife still and whip the stick at it with the goal of sending a little chunk flying.  Rosa was really good at it; we struggled.

I climbed again for oranges.  Best oranges I've ever eaten in my life.  Sweet, juicy, perfect.

Señor Proaña himself!  He only stands maybe 4 foot 11.  He and Teresa had 13 children.  Susana is oldest, then Rosa and Nieves who both work at the Spanish school.  I met Jose, next in line, then Carmen is in the middle, and I met Cristina, the baby, in Quito.  I can't imagine remembering all their names, let alone birthdays!

After the farm we went swimming again.  This is a dammed spot in the river that makes a nice swimming area.  There was a board propped up from the bridge to the dam so of course I went jumping again.  Tough to see me but I'm over there on the left.  On the other side of the trees the river was absolutely beautiful.  I ventured over there without a camera though so you'll have to trust me.  White water racing through huge boulders.

We ended our trip with lunch: the tilapia from Saturday.  Some of the best, freshest fish I've ever had.  I've been surprised a couple times by the fruit on the left: it's a lemon, NOT an orange.  The flesh is misleading.  The yellow medallions are very Ecuadorian.  They're made from a banana paste then fried.  They lose all banana flavor and kind of turn potato-y.  Not my favorite but they make a good starch.

More to come: Quilotoa and reaching the top of Pichincha!