Farming in Ecuador

A Quick Summary

If you missed last week's post, I decided to go volunteer on a farm in Ecuador for a bit! The farm is located in the mountains between the towns of Banos and Riobamba.

Full map

Just Ecuador 

Life on the Farm

Overview:

So far, volunteering has been really great! I'm living with a family of 3, Mónica, Holger, and their 9 year old daughter Emily, along with 2 other volunteers.

Their house itself is not actually on the farm, it's on Mónica's family's property. They own an orchid garden which is also a tourist attraction for couples, so there are tons of heart shaped lights and flowers everywhere. It's pretty nice during my time off, I get to sit in the gardens to read, journal, hang out with the hummingbirds, and sit on the heart shaped benches (by myself). 

The farm belongs to Holger's family, which is why it's in a different location. They used to grow lots of different fruits, but now they mostly grow babacos, which is a type of fruit. Every day, 2 of the volunteers go to the farm to work with Holger, which means that some days are on the farm and some days are helping around the house.

Days on the farm:

The day starts early, we are up before 7am to hit the road since it is a 1.5 hour drive to the farm on the highway and some back roads. Holger only has a 2 seater truck, so we have to squish in the passenger seat. Before the pandemic, Holger said they used to have up to 6 volunteers and then some would have to sit in the bed of the pickup, braving the rain and highway speeds! I guess being a little squished isn't so bad. 

The farm is a giant homemade greenhouse that is filled with babaco plants. The plants aren't super big, but each has a ton of babacos on them, which are pretty large (20-30cm long and pretty heavy). 

We spend most of our time helping harvest the babacos. First, we crawl through the plants, looking for perfectly ripe babacos to pick and put in boxes. The boxes get super heavy and are hard to move around, especially since the farm is built in the mountains and is on a big slope. 

We filled about 50 boxes of 20 babacos each, which meant that we pick almost 1000 babacos each day!

Once the boxes were done, we then went through and picked up and babacos that had fallen on the ground. The small ones were composted, and the bigger ones were put in separate boxes to be sold at the market. After that, we crawled through again, looking for any dead plants. If there was a dead plant, we would pick all the babacos off of them and store them so that they could ripen up to be sold next week. 

Finally, we loaded all the boxes into the trucks for going to the market.

At the end of the day, my back was killing me and I was covered in sweat from the hot greenhouse. However, it was really rewarding seeing all the babacos we had harvested to be sold. 

Days not on the farm:

When we weren't working on the farm, the days were also pretty varied. We would help out around the house with cleaning, cooking, and in the garden feeding the animals. 

Mónica also found out I used to be a swim instructor, so we went down to the pool a few times so I could teach the whole family how to swim!

The pool here is a little different from Canada. It is heated by a hot spring, so they just use the water straight from the mountain which meant it was pretty cloudy and brown. Instead of recirculating the water, they just drain it straight into the river and put new water in. 

Free time:

In my free time, I spent a lot of it just relaxing in the garden which was really nice to be able to slow down a bit. I also got to explore the area which has some nice sights!

One day, I decided to rent a bike to go on the ruta de las cascadas, which is a route with a bunch of waterfalls on it. At the biggest waterfall, you could crawl through this little cave to get all the way behind the falls which was super fun and very wet. 

Food Review

Babacos, babacos, babacos: 9/10

This week, I have eaten SO many babacos. On the farm, if you want a snack... babacos. If you're thirsty... babacos. For breakfast? Babco juice and oatmeal with babacos. We also made babaco jam for toast, and a warm babaco colada for drinking at night. 

Other than the fact that I'm starting to get a little sick of them, they are actually really good. They taste a bit like a melon, or like a Chinese apple-pear: not super strong or sweet, but very good. They also have the texture of a perfectly ripe peach. They are very juicy and they are the kind of fruit that gets all over your face when you try to eat it. 

Pineapple-cheese ice cream: 3/10

I also got to try some pineapple-cheese flavoured ice cream. It was literally just pineapple ice cream with chunks of cheese in it. The pineapple part was good but I did not enjoy the cheese at all. Overall I'm glad I tried it, but I won't be getting that flavor again. 

 

Meanwhile in Peru...

Last I heard, Cam and David just got back from a multi-day hike in northern Peru. When I get a longer update from them I'll post it on the blog so stay tuned for that this week!

Extra Photos

A very matter-of-fact sign

Sketchy old bridge over a waterfall