After some hours of applying for Workaway opportunities we got a positive response from a farm in Jipijapa just 10km or so inland from the coast.
We said goodbye to our wonderful couch surfing host and walked a few blocks to the metro station. This turned out to be a raised and gated piece of pavement with a booth from which you bought your passage. These turned out to just be bendy buses. We were to be riding it to the final stop. After one arrived and appeared impossible for us to board due to a combination of the capacity and our huge backpacks, we decided to wait for the next one. However, as more and more people arrived we realised we would have to just cram ourselves in. At this point the bus was at about 165% capacity and at each stop (about 12 of them) school children and others squeezed them selves in, pushing us further and further into the apparent absence of space. Bare in mind, it was about 28 degrees on that bus and as humid as the rainforest. Standing and clutching my valuables as best I could we finally made it. We were free of that metropolitan hell. We then jumped aboard a second bus which was well within its legal limit of passengers and we were taken up the highway. We arrived and the bus stopped in the fast lane with the doors on the right hand side we jumped off only to realise we were in the middle of a busy highway. Luckily drivers in Ecuador are a lot less homicidal than Peru and they took pity on us. We hopped onto a coach headed for Nobol where we could start hitching a ride to Jipijapa. We were picked up by a clown, yes you read correctly, a clown, not so comically wearing his regular person clothing, on his way to a kid's birthday party and dropped off a km or so up the road at the exit for Jipijapa where we stuck our thumbs out for a few minutes. A grey pickup pulled over with 4 fishermen from manta and collected us this made for a funny journey to Jipijapa. It was here, exhausted, that we decided to spend $3.50 on a taxi for the final 8 km to the farm.
Upon arrival the house appeared empty and we stood there for a few minutes before a smiley Ecuadorian guy came out to greet us. It was at this point that the confusion began. He showed us up to the third floor of the farm house and began calling the lady. I believed that I had been talking to a women and that this guy was her husband. But he told us that it was a 'he' and that he was German hence the name of the farm "Berlin" either way we sat around talking with him about all the fruits and vegetables that grow in Ecuador and the various times they take to grow etc. They then made us a portion of bolones and we played a few games of pool. The owners finally arrived and the confusion was put to rest. The owner is indeed a guy however he is Ecuadorian and his girlfriend (the one with which I was talking) was from Iceland. They showed us to our room and immediately started preparing dinner. The dinner consisted of a few different kinds of Spanish meat brought from Spain by their friend Daniel who was also staying there, some Spanish cheese and a soup with some fish caught from just down the road at the coast. We were also treated to some Spanish herb licour which was very sweat. We talked and laughed and then Aldo (the owner) told us about a recent event. While they were doing some construction work they found some very old looking pieces of ceramic which he took to Quito to get analysed and they turned out to be from around 800 A.D, before the Spanish arrived and likely part of a burial ground. He was very excited and the following day we would be digging for inka gold before the cement would arrive and bury it for good. We then hit the hay 😉 ready for an early start.
The first day we awoke and were greeted by a huge spider luckily in between the two windows, but just as startling nonetheless. Downstairs there awaited a huge breakfast with meat, huge bolones with melted cheese, breads, orange juice, coffee and more! And then we began our quest for Inka gold. This was hard physical work, something I'm not used to. And in a humid environment so it was a challenge of the soul. We found some more pieces of ceramic, each time making us think we were getting close. Finally after ending up empty handed we decided to call it a day and continued eating like kings before taking a huge siesta till about dinner time.
I could continue to tell you how good the food is here and how huge the portions are, but I don't want to make anyone feel bad. So just imagine every sentence starting with a description of food and you can save me the trouble. Day two was out back in the fields which as you can see from the first picture were full of dead maiz plants which needed to be cut down. This was left to the professionals with their fancy motorised tools. We were the clean up crew, and there was a lot to clean up. Nestled in amongst them were cacao plants which I've been told take three years to produce anything. There were also various cool plants and things I uncovered during my endeavours.
There is also a resident puppy who is just impossible to leave alone, she's like a little teddy bear and behaves like one too. Cholita they named her.
The work in the fields continued with raking followed by opening the ground (I'm sure there's a farming verb) ready for planting.
We took a trip to the local town of Jipijapa to see what was what, if you'll excuse my semantically null sentence. There wasn't a whole lot on offer. Of course they have a church butt also a sombrero shaped tourist information building in the centre of the plaza which was probably the coolest part. Other than these two structure there wasn't a whole lot happening.
Over the course of the following days birna had her 31st birthday. We celebrated with a grill and some music, not forgetting the cake. I also learned how to make bolones and had a little experiment with them. I call them bolones Italianos. These had cheese, tomato and oregano, delicious. There was also a freshly cut and extremely heavy bunch of green bananas (used for bolones and other cookery) with a huge 600-odd year old tree in the background.
This is my first time fully emerged in nature and its really peaceful. No sounds of car horns or engines. By day the sound of birds chirping and every 20 minutes or so a woodpecker working away and a plethora of critters both big and small scurrying around. By night, just the crickets.
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