Travels with Hayley

So I was up and out by 7am this morning, went for a walk in the other direction, away from town. The place is bigger than I had understood, very very narrow but quite long. I walked for about half an hour, picking up a little dog pal on the way – I tried out a number of names on him and he seem to like Juan the best, so Juan it was! We meandered for a bit and then headed back towards town where Juan and I bid a fond farewell to each other. I grabbed a drink and some banana bread and sat this time next to the lagoon, just watching the world go by. So lovely.

8.30 we were just about to get back in the boat to leave for the next location, when Miss Dorling came running out of the house with a pad and pen telling me ‘is it ok if we have your address in England, Bastion wants to send you something’ Isn’t that so sweet!!! I wrote it down and then I had a packet of biscuits in my bag which I gave to her and asked her to give them to him when she saw him, the snack fairy lives on 😂 I hope he writes, how cute would that be!

We set off down the river again – there are signposts on the river bank which really tickles me, you’re in the middle of nowhere in the jungle and then a signpost that wouldn’t look out of place on the motorway pops up 😂 There were loads of animals around, mainly the same as we had seen before – iguanas (the nickname in Spanish is apparently tree chicken 😂), green basilisks, herons etc. An hour and a half later we got off the boat, had another wee at the Tiki toilets (I’m very taken with those locks…) and got on a private minibus this time to head to the next location. Lots of scenery out of the window, we went past some fruit processing factories which looked like something out of the Industrial Revolution, all iron and belching smoke – although in fairness, I wouldn’t have the faintest idea what a factory in England looks like, maybe they all look like that?! One was a pineapple processing plant, they grade the pineapples – grade 1 (the best) gets exported and grade 2 are kept domestically. That seems a bit mean doesn’t it!

We stopped for lunch at what was essentially a service station. It had a long buffet of hot foods and you just pointed at what you wanted be they charged you at the till. I have no idea at all how the charging system worked, they didn’t weight the plates or anything – they just kind of looked at them, sucked their teeth a bit like when a dodgy mechanic is telling you how bad a state your car is in, and then named a price! I’m sure it all depended on how much they liked the look of you!

I was very restrained (the others were not and had heaving plates of everything including pigs trotters!) I had a piece of omelette with courgette inside. Interestingly, lots of us had this and everyone had something totally different in theirs – cheese, green beans, courgette etc. It was like omelette roulette! Then I had some salad, some plantains and a piece of chicharrones which is a big thing over here and I’ve been wanting to try it. It’s crackling essentially and delicious!

Even better was the drink I had, Horchata. It’s traditionally Mexican but drunk all throughout the region – it’s rice milk (it might have dairy milk in it too, there seems to be different varieties), cinnamon, spices and sugar. So, so delicious! Then they had lots of snacks to try so I bought 2 to share around the group – one was like strips of semi dried coconut, chewy with a muscavodo kind of fudge. Very intense. The other I’m pretty sure was a golden syrup cornflake cake 😂 I also bought a small fruit cake for the host family at the homestay we were heading to and some chocolate marshmallows.

Back on the bus for another couple of hours and out of the window we could see what looked like a kind of rope ladder bridge made of wire across the highway – it’s an animal bridge so they can get across the road without getting squished! There’s a joke there involving a chicken but I’ll leave that one to Grandpa 😂 We also saw a volcano in the distance, apparently they harness about 12% of the electricity for the country from volcanos!

Kristy had bought from the snack stop what we thought were the same coconut caramel biscuits as the guy had given us on the bus – turns out they were a different interpretation, very deep and moist filling. The taste was so nostalgic and I realised the taste and texture was just like treacle tart, with the shredded coconut taking the place of the breadcrumbs! So delicious, so bad for you! It’s ok though as we broke them in half to share so all the calories fell out of the middle 😜

We arrived at our homestay, dumped the bags and went straight out on an ‘agricultural’ tour. The story behind the community is that in 1991, the government offered this piece of land for 125 families to move to, 800 applied and the most vulnerable were chosen. Each family was given – I think – 6 acres of land. The deal was, for 15 years they were not allowed to sell it, rent it etc. if you didn’t want it anymore you just had to walk away.

For the first 6 years they relied on wells for water and they had no electricity for 8 years. They also had no road so the only way in or out was walking trails or horse. The nearest hospital was 2 hours away by horse so everyone, the ill and the pregnant just had to suck it up! They were given training on how to cultivate the land, how to build their own houses etc so they were totally self sufficient. 

10 years ago their government coach suggested the woman tried to attract tourism to the area. They were linked up with intrepid and now a couple of other tour companies and a homestay business was established and grown from there. There are a couple of big, communal areas with roofs but no sides for communal talks, dinners etc and accommodation is in people houses, or other houses in the area that happen to be empty – for example I was in the house of the daughter of the leader of the scheme, she is only here some weekends.

The agricultural tour was a tour of her ‘garden’ where she grows everything to feed her family. We saw growing:

Avocado

Pineapple

Mango

Coffee

Pepper – black and green 

Yucca 

Sweet potato

Taro

Mandarin lemon

Dragonfruit

Sugar cane 

Medicinal plants 

Quinine

Herbs

Water apple 

Lychee

Sour guava

Ginger

Citronella

Was super interesting, we learnt all about how coffee, chocolate and pepper is processed, we chewed sugar cane (so sweet and refreshing, it just runs straight down your chin and makes a sticky mess but it’s worth it!). Then we got back and they fed us bean empendadas (the beans here aren’t affecting me at all, they must be processed/cooked differently!) and cheesy fried cassava patties. So good. Homemade hot chocolate with chocolate grown there. Then another cold drink which was grim, tasted like weetabix in water, it kept separating to a thick sludge on the bottom of the glass. I stuck to the hot chocolate!

After that we popped back to freshen up and then there was a communal dinner in one of the big outside shelters. It was a served buffet and really good. A kind of soup/stew with cassava, lentils and vegetables. Looked awful but was very nice. Then tortillas (which we helped make when we arrived), little fried beef patties, salad, rice and these patties made of mashed cassava with homemade cheese in them which were fried (we helped make them too) and glasses of star fruit juice. Delicious. The food here is much better than I thought it would be, I can feel my waistline expanding by the day I’m sure but that’s what holidays are for!

However. On the table was a jar of pickles which they said were ‘quite’ spicy. Well. I bit into one and the moment it hit my tongue I spat it out – the side of my tongue burnt and stayed numb for hours. There was absolute chaos at the table where other people had eaten them at the same time and the burning was like nothing on earth. To put it into context, I must have touched them and got some under 2 of my fingernails – it’s now 24 hours late and they are still burning like crazy! I also somehow managed to get some in my eye and it was almost impossible to wash it off your hands too so I had to remove my contacts through layers of tissue! One of the Aussies was gargling with beer, it was insane. I cannot imagine how anyone eats them without that reaction!! 

In bed by 9, I actually had my own room and a mosquito net (I love sleeping under them, it’s so cocoon like and cosy!) but got very little sleep as the rooster next door didn’t get the memo he was only supposed to crow in the morning and so just informed us loudly of his presence very 30 seconds or so 😂.

Day 6 to follow asap.

Hope everything is good at home and the weather is a bit better for you?

Lots of love xxx