Jungle Vacation

In mid-January, we took our vacation to the third region of Ecuador: the jungle. Yes, we've supposedly lived in the jungle throughout our two years here, but this was our chance to go "muy adentro"--way far in. We took two days to hike through Jatun Sacha (which means "big jungle" in Kichwa) with our guide, Fabio (not the margarine-eater that's on your romance novels).

Standing in front of a ceibo tree.

Project - Horticulture

From September 2012 to August 2013 (I am embarrassingly behind on writing blogs), I co-taught organic agriculture classes as one of my main activities. It was quite a learning experience for me, as it is the first opportunity I have had to participate in formal education. We had four sections, each of which came to the school farm for two hours each week. For each section, we selected a project appropriate to the knowledge level of the students. One of these projects was horticulture, or vegetable production.

Some of my students planting seeds in a freshly made bed.

Vacation to the Coast!

We finally made it to the coast! We took about a week and a half off from our activities here in the jungle and made the fifteen-hour bus journey to help a friend with a tourist mapping project (more about that visit in a future blog) and then head down to Puerto Lopez to chillax on the beach.

Snail trails on the beach in Puerto Lopez.

Making Chocolate

Earlier this year I went to go to a workshop at the Río Muchacho Organic Farm on the coast of Ecuador. Most of the workshop was review for me, but we did get to MAKE CHOCOLATE! Here's a little info about how to make chocolate - old school style.

1. Get the pods off of the tree.You can chop 'em off with a machete or whack them down with a stick.

This is a cacao tree (from Indonesia - can you believe we haven't taken one in Ecuador yet?). These are unripe pods.