Teskes Gone South: Ecuador

By Dana

We arrived in Quito around 7:30pm and not to our surprise our taxi driver was not there waiting for us as he had promised (aparently he was parked somewhere in the parking lot - not sure how we were ever supposed to find him there). So began adventure #1 of the trip. We got a taxi from the airport, and of course the driver didn't know the "barrio" or neighborhood where we were going. After driving around aimlessly in the dark for a few minutes and asking numerous people for directions, he finally decided it would be better to find another taxi. Thankfully taxi guy #2 was from Barrio Plazapampa and knew exactly where to find "La casa de tierra" which was the most descriptive address we were given.

After navegating down a dirt road in the middle of nowhere that had more potholes than Doans has pills (as Grandma Harney would say) for a good while, we arrived at "La casa de tierra." When we had heard we would be staying in an earthen house, we had a completely different image in our mind than what was standing in front of us when we arrived. It is the perfect first stop on our WWOOFing adventure.

Here's a picture of the house from the garden. It has 3 bedrooms (one used as a playroom for the kids), a beautiful kitchen, living room, dining room, 2 bathrooms, pantry, and a couple of closets. On the right you see a greenhouse that is FULL of tomato plants (my dream greenhouse). :)

Dining room with wood burning fireplace.

Kitchen.

We are staying with an amazing Italian couple, Cecilia and Francesco, and their two kids, Rumi (which means 'stone' in the indigenous Quechua language) and Amanda. They are an amazing family who designed this cob house so they could live comfortably while also living sustainably.

Rumi picking some flowers for his mama. He loves helping us in the garden, especially when searching for potatoes after we've tilled up the soil.

Amanda and Brent playing in the living room, which we do almost every afternoon after work. They're both amazing kids!

The family has a solar-powered water heater and they also use composting toilets (as seen here). After every use, you cover your waste up with sawdust. When the toilet gets full, you remove the 5 gallon bucket, which fits snugly beneath the seat, and take it out to the compost. After about 9 months it's ready to be used in the garden! You'd be amazed at how it doesn't smell or anything. It's a little extra maintenance, but an incredible system.

Everything that goes down the drain in the house is biodegradeable, including soap. They have a system outside consisting of various plants where the grey water gets 'filtered' and is then used to water their crops. Pretty cool!

We eat out of the garden everyday. Usually Cecilia cooks our amazing meals, but here's part of one Brent and I prepared on our own with fresh lettuce and tomatoes straight from the garden!

And now for the fun part...

The work Brent and I are doing for our stay is HARD WORK. I've never done so much physical labor in my life. We spend 6 hours everyday outside, which I didn't think was that much time after all the hours I used to put in at my old job, however 6 straight hours of tilling a field by hand will make just about anything else look easy, especially at 8,500 feet!

The first full day we spent tilling one small section of the field. It took forever! We arrived at the very end of the dry season, so the ground was SUPER HARD on top of the fact that it consists of compressed volcanic ash (from a long, long time ago) and clay.

Here's our work from day #1!

What everything looked like BEFORE!

What the field looked like AFTER!

Despite the hard work we did get to use some awesome tools.

Me with a hoe.

Awesome tool used to cut wheat!

After the first day, the rainy season started in full force. One afternoon when Brent and I had gone out exploring we got back to the house just in time before a full hail storm broke loose.

A typical afternoon rain.

Hailstorm (as mentioned above).

Due to the rain every afternoon, here's what our boots look like after a few minutes in the garden each day. We've given up on keeping them clean. All the blisters on my hands which are bandaged up in this picture are finally now done oozing and have turned into calluses. SUCCESS!

Other than work, we've gotten to PLAY a little bit as well!

A hot springs in Papallacta. We went here with the family only a day into our stay. It felt awesome on our throbing muscles after tilling the field on day 1.