For us here at Hacienda Palugo, this past week has been full of discovery and excitement. At the start of the week, we took an herb walk with Marcea, learning the medicinal properties of native Ecuadorian plants as well as a few that are common to our home forests in North America. We took in the sweet, aromatic scent of lavender, the complex and beautiful passionflowers, and the useful yet dainty, chamomile flowers, and all the while Kestrel, our medic, gathered various herbs for future teas, tonics, and salves.
We spent Wednesday with Michael Dammer, the brother of Thomas and Matthias. He directed us through quite the patch of thorny vegetation so as to properly show us the geography of Palugo. We learned that at one time, Palugo spanned as far vertically as Pasochoa (a nearby mountain and extinct volcano we would climb the following the day), but because of a volcanic eruption, Palugo is now roughly half the height it used to be. We even got the opportunity to do a bit of rock climbing in the process—lowering ourselves down through a crevasse in the rocky cliffs surrounding Palugo. And our reward for doing so was great, for we were able to observe cave paintings created by some of the early people who inhabited the area. After a lovely morning of hiking through the vastness and diversity of Palugo’s geography, we ended by caving through the tunnels— used for irrigating the farm— underneath Palugo’s cliffs. Our way illuminated only by the light of our headlamps, we sloshed through the icy water lining the tunnels whilst observing the layers of rock of which the tunnels are composed—a physical timeline of Palugo’s history.
Our journey ended with “the graduation tunnel,” as Michael called it: a small opening in the rock, the majority of which was filled with ice-cold water. And on our bellies and knees, most of us, simultaneously swam and crawled our way through the tunnel; an experience we will surely never forget.
Considering that our day had been filled with such excitement and adventure, it came as no surprise that our evening followed suit. We were welcomed with warmth and kindness into the kitchen of Thomas, Matthias, and Michael’s mother, Adella, to learn some traditional Ecuadorian cooking. Slowly but steadily we reduced
las papas (potatoes) to mush for el sopa de las papas; all the while adding spices, seasoning, and various vegetables under Adella’s kind yet watchful eye. Our next creation was quimbolitos, a traditional Ecuadorian dessert made of corn flour, egg whites, sugar, and anise, which we sampled in Quito with Matthias and Nicole, although Adella’s recipe proved for a much more delicious treat. However wonderful all those ingredients sound, the manner in which you cook quimbolitos is what creates the savory flavor of the cakes: You must steam them in atzera leaves (a native Ecuadorian plant) without wrapping the leaves too tightly around the cake batter (a task that many of us took a while to get the hang of) so that the cakes might grow and expand when steamed.
At the end of the day we all gathered on the porch of Adella and Papa Francisco’s house to enjoy the cool Ecuadorian night, surrounded by the pleasure of fine company and warm, delicious food filling our stomachs.
The following day was yet again action packed as we carried out our plan to summit Pasochoa—a mountain whose height is only 2,000 meters less than Cotopaxi and whose many cliffs, plants, and rocks amazed us with their beauty. Although it was hard at first to find a pace that worked for everyone, and several of us had difficulties with the altitude, in the end we all reached Pasochoa’s summit together—a community, tired, yet unbroken. We enjoyed our lunch in that beautiful space: On our right was the drastic drop of Pasochoa’s cliffs into the jungle, a land dotted with lush green flora, and on our left was the challenging way we had come, through thick grasses with roots that stretched deep into the mountain’s rocky soil. As we reveled in how far we had climbed, Hytham, our fire and wood manager, provided us with the warmth and beauty of a fire—a practice that he hopes to continue as we embark on our coming expeditions.
Closer to home, however, I can proudly say that we have all created our very own knives! Although the process was long and sometimes tedious, in the end we all became masters of the proper use of rasps, saws, clamps, and sandpaper in order to create something unique—something very much a part of ourselves that will indubitably aid us in our journeys ahead. We constructed our knife handles from birch burls, an extraordinarily strong material, which is challenging to carve. In addition, we made wooden sheaths for our knives, which will later be covered in leather after we learn that craft at the village of Zuleta during our upcoming expedition.
Finally, to conclude a truly eventful week, on Saturday we voyaged to Tatoo to make our pants. With the help of the very kind and thoughtful women who work in Tatoo’s factory, we cut out each individual piece needed to construct the pants and then aided the women in the actual construction of the pants, although they were far more competent in using the sewing machines than we. In fact, we were so used to the temperamental sewing machines at Kroka in New Hampshire that we found the commercial ones used at Tatoo almost too precise and thus unwieldy. And yet, at the end of the day we all were able to proudly and gratefully sport our brand new, custom-made, chocolate brown (a fine choice of color chosen by Marcea), quick-drying pants. Tatoo was even kind enough to gift us with very stylish, useful belts, for which we are incredibly grateful.
As the past week draws to a close and the new one is just blossoming, our community is preparing for the three-week expedition ahead. During our expedition we will be experiencing the true breadth of Ecuador’s geography—journeying from the highlands to the jungle and everywhere in between. We will enjoy the challenges of biking a portion of the trip through a mountain range and down to the jungle as well as rafting and paddling down the Yatunyaku (a tributary to the Napo River). We also look forward to the challenge of merging our close-knit group into the communities of the villages we will visit along the way.
Quote of the week: “The graduation tunnel!”
Spanish of the week: quimbolitos—an Ecuadorian dessert made of corn, egg white, and sugar
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