Canoa y Rio Muchacho

This past week I have been MIA because I was traveling! With my BCA group, we took a seven hour night bus to the beach--only our bus broke down and it took more like 11 hours to get there.

We went in Canoa--a small little (wannabe) surfing town where the locals walk around barefoot.


Unfortunately, the weather was not great, we had about an hour of sun, yet a few people still managed to get burned.




They sell coconut juice in real coconuts on the beach!


After an afternoon in Canoa we went to Rio Muchacho--an organic farm twenty minutes from the beach. The farm is vegetarian and has NO trash, and composts everything (which means we cannot use even our shampoo and conditioner because they are not environmentally friendly--and it would wash into the river)!

Here's one of the founders of the farm Daniel explaining composting at the environmental primary school in the valley.


They have over 150 crops that they use to cook with--here's some of them.


Dining area--hammocks!


The bowls that the food is served in are from local clay and the spoon and cup are made from coconuts. All the breakfasts are the same, and the other two meals rotate between a few options. Below is breakfast.


This is the front porch to my cabin.


A baby goat that was born the day before!


Me cooking coffee! First we took the seeds from the fruit, roasted them, ground them, and then made coffee!


On the day we went down the valley to see a Howler Monkey forest, we had to make our lunch. So we all picked banana leafs and looked like ants carrying them back to the kitchen as they were bigger than us.


After our hike/horse back ride, our unwrapped food--I don't know what was in there except for rice, a hard boiled egg, and onions--but it was so delicious!


Two thousand year old tree--Risa trying to climb it.


Mama Jovita's house! She lives on the land where the howler monkey forest and refuses sell it to turn a profit with crops. She is eighty something years old and still weaves. On another note I have no pictures of the monkeys. We climbed straight up a mountains (no joke) slipping and sliding in our boots in the mud. Then we spent much of the time looking at the hard to see monkeys while trying to avoid them as they tried to pee and poop on us. haha.


On the way back to the farm, those that hiked got to ride back. However, we crossed 22 streams and the truck got stuck a couple of times.


Me sitting on my mule waiting for the truck to be unstuck.


After Rio Muchacho, we had the option of staying at the beach. I decided to with some friends but it was sprinkling rain and was not beachy at all. We stayed at the Coco Loco Hostel and shared a room with some other travelers. The night scene was great, but we left the next morning because they weather was not going to be good that day either. We took the 630 bus back--which did not show up until 730--typical Ecuador, and seven hours later--back home!
(Thanks to Meghan, Kristen, and Yui for the pictures!)