Río Canoa

We took a road trip 5 hours north to Conoa this weekend, hunting for sun.

We only found a little sun, but we had a bunch of interesting learning experiences. Perhaps most importantly, we learned that Charles (my mom’s travel agent/cardiologist gentleman caller) or Addie (renown Airbnb expert) should book the rest of our travel arrangements. We are not wimpy travelers, but this weekend we realized that we are not 20 years old and that accommodations advertised on hostelworld.com may not be for us.

That said, we really enjoyed lots about the weekend. The changes in topography in our road trip—cacti, rice paddies, palm trees, crazy huge trees, sea, hills and mountains - were really cool. We saw so many weird and amazing micro climates in such a short period of time. Unfortunately, Talia missed most of the drive because, heeding warnings from travel books, we gave her a Dramamine to help with car sickness (the roads are very curvy, and in some places, sort of in the ocean). It’s possible that we went overboard with the Dramamine because she was OUT for the ride.

After the long ride, we spent one night in Canoa, but between the late night dance party next door to our accommodation (“hotel” is not quite the right word) and a group of nocturnal roosters on the street outside, none of us slept well. We had planned a day trip to an organic farm not far from Canoa, but decided to check out of the dance-party-and-rooster hotel in order to stay at the peaceful farm. The farm was certainly beautiful, and the food - all grown on site - was amazing…but the abuelo at the neighboring farm down the road happened to turn 72 this weekend, so the family played dance music until 6am and of course a group of roosters cockle-doodle-doo’ed from 3am until the sun rose. Additionally, while I’m excited about all of the biodiversity in Ecuador, I’m beginning to think it’s mostly diversity in insects—despite the the mosquito nets, the enormous bugs didn’t help our sleep.

Notwithstanding the lack of sleep and excessive encounters with strange bugs, we had a good time. Talia loved all of the farm animals— she enjoyed riding another horse, feeding pigs and chickens and hanging with a dog named Mango. She especially liked the cat, Mousey, which made me love her a tiny bit less (where’s her dog loyalty?!?).  We all learned a lot about sustainable farming (and compostable toilets), plus Talia learned how to harvest cocoa beans and make chocolate. To top it off, she made a necklace and a ring from local plants, which involved her using a saw and various other dangerous tools with minimal supervision. Of course, she’s most excited to tell her grandparents about this. In good news, no one lost any fingers.

Before we left, the abuelo from the farm down the road brought us some birthday cake to make up for the noise from the wild geriatric party the night before. The adventure continues…

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Oh wait! This just in! A guest post narrated by Talia:

Hello everybody! I am happy that you guys read our blog. Right now I’m at a farm and I fed pigs and chickens, and I also did more horseback riding. I’m eating my breakfast at the farm while mommy types. Oh, I also fed chickens and roosters. We have a cat at the farm named Mousey. She’s very sweet. Also, there are dogs named Mango and Rosa. They are super cute and always come into our little house.

We slept in little nets so we would be safe from mosquitos. Actually, beetles swarmed all around us. There were 3 million of them. My mommies put me in my net first and then they got into their net. And my mommies heard a noise at night and Mango barked and barked. He was guarding us, which was sweet. Yeah, that’s it from Ecuador. I hope school is fun! Bye! Love, Talia.Read more