Neverland

Sorry for the delay, we have been far away from the internet. Neverland farm is a 45 minute walk from a tiny town called Tumianuma. Tumianuma is an hour bus ride from Vilcabamba, which is the closest place with internet and phones. The remote setting of the farm, however, is my favorite part.

We are set between jagged, nearly vertical mountains that are green with brush. The farm is on the river, which is fast but shallow enough to go swimming. We are coming out of the rainy season and entering the windy dry season, which means no more roads washing away, but soil erosion from the wind. When we first arrived the roads nearly shut down from landslides and we barely made it to the farm. The weather has been very nice for the last two weeks.

It seems like everyone has mixed feelings about the farm. The volunteer community ranges from 8 to 15 people, and the owner isn´t around too much to manage the group of transients. Therefore, we are staying for a full month and figuring things out as we go. The food production of the farm is not functioning adequately, so we bring in most of the food we eat. The garden is start up, and lacking compost entirely (the number one ingredient for organic farming). However, we are growing a decent amount of crops that will produce long after we leave. Besides the frustrations I come across with the agricultural system and lack of management, however, the farm is a wonderful place to be for an extended period of time. I enjoy the long term volunteers very much, and we have a lot of fun even when working. After work we cook great food and wonder around the land looking for fruits and fire flies. Life is remote and simple. And there are citrus trees everywhere.

Interesting fact about the land : it was founded by a ¨fruitarian¨ parapaleygic that started a cult there years ago. Johnny Lovewisdom wrote a bunch of bizzare philosophy that remains in the room next to ours. I have yet to read it, but for some reason I like the idea that a cult leader that ate only fruit planted all the citrus trees around. It´s a strange story. There must be hundreds of citrus trees, but that was a long time ago. The trees haven´t been pruned properly, and now it is a farm that supports travelers that aren´t sure what they are looking for.

We are staying in a room with big open windows without glass. There are bugs everywhere and we are dirty and we are happy. The meadows are full of butterflys, and I often think about how the place deserves the name Neverland. We milk a cow once in a while. I never knew how difficult utters could be. There are horses, a burro, dogs, cats, kittens, a venomous snake that big one of the dogs, so we killed it (she had 30 eggs and a rat inside and we are drying the skin), spiders and soon there will be puppies.

Staying in one place for a month is what we needed. The hostal circut, or gringo trail, is very tiring and expensive. I don´t want to stay on it for too long at one time. I´d rather farm hop for the majority of the trip. There is a lot to learn from farming, and right now I am learning that I am able to do things I once thought were hard, I just have to stop complaining. I really like this tool called a barretta. It´s a metal bar that you can break up hard soil with and pry huge rocks up with. It feels good to work and hurt a little bit. Sometimes the Ecuadorian men don´t like women to do heavy work though - they say it will damage our uterus and reproductive systems. A bit archaic, but it is cultural and feminism doesn´t go over too well sometimes. I let it go.

I miss everyone a lot. It´s only been 2 months but everyday is so different that I feel that I´ve been gone for longer. I think about the return often, but I am also looking forward to the changes about to come.

Love,
Lauren

Chillin on la playa

After hiking around Quilotoa to remote Quichua village towns with amazing people and scenery, we schlepped 16 hours of bus rides to the coast of Ecuador. To us, it was an entirely different country than the mountain towns we had become accustomed to. People actually wear flip flops and tank tops!

The first beach town we spent a few days at was Puerto Lopez. The touristy activities were too expensive, so we ended up chillin in hammocks and walking the beach quite a bit. The first night we met a couple hippy kids, one girl from Austria - Melony, and a guy named Jemi who said he is from The Light when you ask him where he is from. We cooked for them a couple nights, hung out with them on the curb selling their handmade crafts, and ended up staying at Jemi's property he had been gifted by a friend. It was interesting to say the least to get the perspective of a native to South America (we think he was from Brazil) about global politics.

The beach of Puerto Lopez was nice, but very littered with garbage and washed up fish from the commercial boats, not to mention the over abumdance of motorcycle taxis holloring us down for rides when everything was a 10 minute walk (the industry was reliant on tourists mostly, and it's the off season right now). So... we went to a town 17 km south and the beach was immaculate, and all to ourselves. We befriended the woman who managed our hostel - Sandra - and it turned out to be more of a bed and breakfast than a hostel. We were stoked to buy produce to cook for ourselves, which seems to be a good solution for our digestion.

Another 8 hours of buses yesterday, and we are now in the beutiful city of Cuenca, probably Ecuador's most charming... as they say in the Lonely Planet. We are getting all the emails and updates off now before heading down to Loja later today where we will start working on our first farm for a month or so. It is called Never Never Land, after Peter Pan, and there we learn more about farming and forever be kids, as one must be at such a place as Neverland. We are looking forward to having a bit more purpose than just being tourists.

So for now, check out the link www.neverlandfarm.org, and we will try uploading some pictures soon. We may not have much internet accessability, but we hope to still check once a week. From the ABOUT page on the weblink, there are instructions to leave us messages if you would like to call.

Much love,
Andy and Lauren