Hacienda Ilitio: week one

I’ve completed my first (of two) weeks working on an Ecuadorian permaculture farm. As it turns out, my fears in the last post about starving to death were completely unfounded—this week has involved some of the best overeating I’ve ever done in my life. I’m spending the weekend in Baños, which is a super-touristy town in the Central Sierra region of Ecuador. Plans for tomorrow include hiking and some Spanish lessons, plus writing and working on my archive of Semester in the West journal entries, which I’m going to be putting up on the blog sometime soon.

I’m too tired to post anything philosophical about agriculture, so, in no particular order, here’s a list of stuff I’ve done this week:

1) Spent twenty-five hours harvesting oats by hand. As a result, I now have four slivers and three callouses on my hands, plus a ridiculous farmer’s tan.

2) Milked a cow, then drank the milk from said cow less than ten minutes later.

3) Witnessed a burro escape from its fenced-in field three times in the same day. This is the same burro that apparently tried to eat its own child, and is consequently in solitary confinement with three horses that seem to think the burro is an inferior creature. Needless to say, this is the saddest looking burro I’ve ever seen, and that’s saying something, because I love Winnie the Pooh.

4) Lived in the shadow of Mt. Cotopaxi, which is one of the most active volcanoes in the region, if not the world.

5) Eaten enough fried yucca and fried plantain to give at least three people heart attacks.

6) Baked bread without a recipe in a wood-burning oven.

7) Drank raw alpaca milk. Which is less fatty than cow’s milk, and consequently less delicious. But still. RAW FUCKING ALPACA MILK! So many foodie points.

8) Watched Sebastian, the owner/manager of the farm, make cheese from fresh milk. Then we got to take some of the non-aged cheese. Which basically tastes like if you took raw milk and then made it even more awesome by adding salt and stuff.

9) Seen quinoa growing in its native habitat. Quinoa is actually an incredibly gorgeous plant—bright red-pink flowery on really tall stalks.

10) Fallen in love. His name is Santiago. He’s very tall and handsome. I’ve been told that he’s half llama and half alpaca, but I’m still not clear on the difference between the two. Anyway, he’s white and gorgeous and I want to take him home with me.