Rio Muchacho for Carnaval

RIO MUCHACHO-Carnaval Holiday

For those of you who know me well, you’ll realize I’m NOT a party person! My perfect day is to go to bed early, get up early, go for a run or hike, read a book, eat some great meals, spend time with friends. But Carnaval is just the opposite, party all night, sleep all day, drink till you pass out. Sorry, but not my style. So, I’m trying something new. I’m here at Rio Muchacho Organic Farm. A real, working farm that invites both tourists (me) and volunteers (from weeks, to months) to experience coastal farming life. Pretty cool as an alternative to the beach parties of Carnaval, huh?

Some background about Rio Muchacho…the name is because the river is like a muchacho (a boy that just does what he wants). During the rainy season (NOW!!!) the river overtakes the road in many places. Building bridges is impossible because they will just get washed out. The river’s still passable in SUV’s 4X4 with tire chains, but most people who live in the community don’t have that luxury. They just wade through the river or go by horse. Luckily, since I’m the tourist and paid the big bucks, I got to ride in the SUV. The road was in such bad condition though! They get heavy, heavy downpours in the PM, then the sun comes out and just bakes all the gullies. I at first was a little bit angry because I had to wait an hour and a half at the main road for the truck to come get me. I was baking in the sun, then the rain came and no one told me what was going on. When the truck finally go there, I gave them my two cents. Then Dario, the owner and founder of Rio Muchacho, calmly looked at me and said, “Rachel, vivimos en circumstancias muy dificiles. We live in very difficult circumstances.” So, I calmed down, got in the truck and was so glad to finally be here!

So, the Rio Muchacho farm…It was founded by an Ecuadorian/Kiwi couple. Dario, the Ecuadorian was raised in Quito the son of upper middle class folks. He went to university to study agriculture. Then bought up the land that the farm is on. Before Dario, it was just pastureland for cattle, not a lot of plants or anything, really. The soil was destroyed there were no animals just waste land. But Dario saw so much potential in this land. He met his wife, Nichole a New Zealander working in a nearby town, also an agronomist. Together they formed a vision for Rio Muchacho Farm. They have really creative farming practices and have been very successful. The farm, of course has its crops, but a large part of their vision is education. They support a community school and bring in groups to teach about permaculture, organic farming, etc. Also, the tourism part of it. They offer 3 day tours (which I’m doing) kind of an overview of the farm, get to make chocolate and roast coffee beans, horseback riding into the forest to see the monkeys, make jewelry from Tagua (vegetable ivory) plus relax in the hammock, read, bird watch, etc. The third option is to do both short and long term volunteering. I’m here now as a tourist and there are about 6 long term volunteers, mostly Europeans and American college aged working the farm, hanging out. I think they pay their own room and board, but it seems like a pretty nice deal to me!

It’s quite amazing what they’ve done. They have 10 hectors of land and yesterday, I got to tour it with some of the volunteers who are working here. They have planted so many varieties of fruits and veggies. Just to name a few…peanuts, papaya, mangos, passion fruit, ocra, squash, tomatoes, bananas, watermelon, pineapple. They also have pigs (chanchos) and piglets, chickens, guinea pigs, rabbits, goats. Although none of the animals are for consumption. Oh my gosh, there are so many creative people working as volunteers they have passing through they get great ideas. So this is kind of gross but it works….for example, with the pig poop (which releases a lot of methane) they put it in big black bags. They get baked by the sun, the methane gets released and all this gas is able to pump the water! They also have their coffee grinder, blender and another water pump attached to stationary bicycles as a way to generate energy without using electricity.

Of course, they have composting toilets. Now, I’m not the crunchiest person around (although I can be, if put in the right circumstances) but here I’m surrounded by them! So, I arrive with my suitcase and stuff and the tall German girl who’s the guest volunteer welcomer greets me. How long are you staying? As she eyes my suitcase. Oh, just till Monday (truth be told, it’s mostly curriculum guides and books I need to catch up on for school!) Oh, great! Then when she served me lunch, I asked for a fork. Oh no, we don’t have forks here, we use all organic materials. So, I ate my lunch in a carved out coconut bowl with a utensil that mimics a Korean spoon. Kind of cool for a few days. There are signs all over that say, “Trash? We don’t have trash. Anything you bring in, you pack out.” And it’s true. They’ve done an amazing job of generating hardly zero waste, if that makes sense. All the food, which was delicious came from the garden. For lunch the first day, we had great lentils with rice, avocado, radish and sprouts salad, fish from the river and passion fruit/oat drink. Dinner was this great Spanish tortilla (egg omelet with lots of veggies) another lentil dish and stir fried veggies. I just feel healthy talking about all this organic food! (I hope I’m not sounding too cynical. It’s fine for a few days, but I can’t imagine living this way for the long term! But that’s OK, I don’t have to, right?)

I have a cute little cabana overlooking the river. There’s a hammock, a comfy bed. Last night, sleeping was amazing, as there are so many plants, the bugs and frogs and everything else was so soothing. I certainly don’t get those noises in Quito!

Day 2:

I was up early, no surprise, since I slept so well and had an early night to bed. Lots of morning noises-bird plus roosters, chanchos. Everyone was hungry! It’s hard to sleep in here. Breakfast was delicious. There’s just something so delicious about food straight from garden to table. Freshly ground coffee and brewed without a machine. Also fruit salad with fruits harvested from the garden-watermelon, papaya, pineapple and other tropical fruits that I don’t even know the English translation for! Also, there’s this dish that this province, Manabi is +known for called Sal Prieta. It is crushed up peanuts, ground cornmeal, salt, pepper and cumin. Kind of ground into a peanut butter paste. You eat it with grilled plantains. And of course, the crunchiest place on earth has to have their own variety of homemade granola. Delicious! Yum!

After breakfast was time for reading in the hammock, listening to the river and the birds. Then we hiked to Arbol Gigante, the common name for this humongous strangler fig tree. Basically, the strangler fig took over another tree and now the tree is immense! I climbed it becaue the vines and branches coming down make for a perfect ladder. Oh yes, getting to arbol gigante was quite the adventure too! We had to cross the river three times, so it was on again, off again with the rubber boots, socks, etc. I’m starting to get an appreciation for Dario’s words when he first greeted me, “Rachel, we live in very difficult circumstances here.” After our hike to and from Arbol Gigante plus the climb up and down, we had worked up quite an appetite. Lunch again was simple, but delicious. Beet and turnip salad with ginger and some other herbs from the garden, rice (of course!), stewed white beans, quinoa soup, fish.

After lunch, again was siesta time…I’ve gotten caught up on all these books I’ve downloaded on my kindle!

Then we went to the kitchen to light the fire for cacao bean roasting. Here at Rio Muchacho, they plant the cacao tree and use it mostly for internal consumption. So, I got to go through the whole process of making chocolate. First the beans are dried for a week. Then we roast them in a pan over pretty high heat. They start to pop and the shells pop off-that’s how you know they’re ready. Then you peel the shells off the beans that didn’t quite pop. Next you take the hot beans and grind them to a fine, fine paste and add the quantity of sugar to taste. (that’s how we get the percent of pure chocolate to sugar). Then we took our cacao/sugar paste, and added some milk, heated it in the pan and waah-laah, a dark, dark, decadent, delicious chocolate sauce. I don’t know if it tasted so good because I made it with fresh ingredients or what, but it was delicious!

After chocolate making, I went to the workshop to make a bowl from the mate tree (I’m not even sure how to say it in English, it’s a tropical tree like a palm tree, and the mate fruit looks like a coconut, although you can’t eat the fruit inside, it’s poisonous).  You cut open the mate fruit, scrape out the pulp with a metal spoon and the shell is quite hard. Then we used the electric sander to make it uniform all the way around. I also got to use some carving tools to scrape a design on the outside, although mine looked very rudimentary compared to the ones they had for sale at their little shop. But a fun experience, none the less. Then it was an afternoon walk through the village, a shower before night fall and dinner over candlelight. Some folks that are staying here are so interesting. I met an artist from Holland, in her mid-70’s, just travling up and down the coast. Also, a young French girl, just out of high school, figuring out what to do next in life. Then there’s a man who’s a career changer…working at a non-profit in Philadelphia for 5 years, burnt out, coming here to recharge and decide what path to take next.

Everyone here is so kind and happy. How can you not be, it’s such a beautiful place to spend time in (although I couldn’t be here for much longer than I am…the heat is oppressive, my clothes are stinky and damp, the mosquitos are everywhere, I can’t keep my hands and nails clean! But alas, these are tiny inconveniences I can deal with for a few days). Mostly I’m so glad to have spent a short while in this beautiful, peaceful place.