Quito to Cows

The journey from Isabela to our hotel in Quito was a long one starting at 5.30am and finishing at 7pm after a taxi, jet boat (2hrs), another taxi, ferry, bus, plane, and another taxi! And so we stayed at the Secret Garden hotel for a couple of nights just recovering and planning our next move. We saw Avatar 3-D at the movies and from distant memory ate a lot – but that is no different to usual. Then moved to a quieter area of Quito called La Floresta – we now feel like we really know the city having stayed in various areas and having returned to it so many times. Every time that we come back the altitude hits us and we turn in to a pair of old grannies staggering up hills and moaning!

So after a few days in Quito we headed off to our next volunteering project – La Hesperia. Our instructions were to get a bus headed for Santo Domingo but to give the driver instructions to drop us on the side of the road in the tiny village of La Esperie. Here we had to hide our bags in an empty house and then embark on a ’20 minute walk’ up a hill to the reserve. Hmmm, 40 very hot and sweaty minutes later we staggered in to a clearing and found the volunteer house. The moment we arrived the mosquitos started – probably enticed by how delightful we smelt.

Scott, a volunteer intern, gave us a brief tour and introduced us to everyone. Our room had an absolutely amazing view, two very small hard beds (the planks kept dropping out of Gio’s bed base – not funny after the tenth time, apparently!), and a clothes rail. Not luxury by any stretch but the view and the amazing wildlife made up for that. Although I will say thank goodness for mosquito nets.

Our first morning was an early one. We had volunteered to ‘help’ milking the cows. Not something Gio or I had ever done or actually considered doing but were both excited about (for some strange reason). Turns out it is far far harder than it looks. I was SO frustrated.

Especially when Gio seemed to uncover some hidden talent for it.

Something to do with strong hands from weight lifting...mmmmm.....It took me about 4 days to really get any milk out and even then it took me 30 minutes per cow – painfully slow compared to the experts, like the lovely Juan:

The highlight of that first morning, and of every subsequent morning was feeding the baby cows. Cows are super timid – one look and they seem to panic. But if you have a bucket of milk in your hands they go nuts. The first few times the calves were in little pens and so the task of feeding them wasn’t too tricky. Later on as they got stronger they broke the door of the pen! And then they would suck on anything they could get near – the edge of the bucket, your arms, your boots, trousers, t shirt....it was a fenzy but absolutely hilarious.

From the first day onwards a disturbing amount of our time was spent discussing teet size and shape and what we thought the cows were thinking (we decided it was mostly ‘what an earth are you doing back there’).

We had signed up for the ‘sustainable living’ programme at the reserve and in our first week our time was spent doing the following:

Fruit picking – very entertaining trying to use a very long stick with a cage at the end to get oranges from the tops of the trees, and then ducking as they came flying down on our heads.

Peanut planting – and trying not to eat the peanuts rather than plant them.

Donkey riding – yes donkey riding. Every day the milk was taken down the hill to be collected by the milk truck and then some lucky devil got to ride the donkey back up the hill. My experience was slightly frustrating as the donkey was a) old, b) always hungry and c) just plain stubborn. It would stop for a rest, a snack or just for fun. Gio’s experiences were far more frustrating and he would come back up the hill calling the donkey all sorts of names including lazy ass amongst other less refrained ones. Apparently on the first trip down the donkey decided it needed to lie down, just when Gio thought perhaps it had died it decided to roll around and have a good scratch with it’s legs in the air and the milk containers crashing around!

Banana plant maintenance – using very large machetes (yes we were supposed to be avoiding knives but hey ho) to clear around banana plants and strip off the outer layers – an amazing amount of water came out as you did this. Have decided I am an expert with a machete. Gio got a blister from it.

At the end of the week we took a walk to some waterfalls and natural water slides. It was a little more adventurous than I had anticipated and there was a lot of very sticky mud and slipping, sliding, screaming and grabbing anything in reach for dear life. But it was fun.

After a week of cold showers and too many bugs we retreated to Quito to get our clothes washed and recover!