I´m in Quito with the O and C. it´s great to be with them again and funny as always. quito is a crazy nice city. i´m really glad we decided to come. i had no idea it was going to be like this. it´s beautiful and clean and has a lot going on and the people are really nice and the architecture is really cool. i like it a lot. it feels kind of like a different country from being en el campo though. but equally interesting. this morning we found ourselves in the middle of a giant demonstration trying to get the constitution rewritten and inevitably got teargassed. i miss the farm but this is good too. i´m having trouble thinking of things that would be intersting to put on the blog. it´s ola´s birthday tomorrow (27!!), i bought a watch, i made lots of cool earings with the feathers of a dead mot mot bird that i found on the farm (gross, i know), i might meet up with this boy who went to the UBA last year and lives in Quito, we´re going to Bogota this sunday, eating lots of porridge and funny fruit, getting blisters, writing boring blog posts. basically. send me your addresses and i´ll write you postcards or draw you pictures!

p.s. lots of robberies happen in colombia. do you think i should get some sort of insurance for the month for my camera and ipod. i guess this is directed at the parents. i don´t really know where to look for that stuff.

i left the farm this morning at 6am. off to a whole new part of the trip. i´m sad to go but it was also a good time. Tina found out that her leg is actually broken ans she´s in a cast for another few weeks and most people have left. also i´m really excited to see ola and carolina and spend time with them and see colombia. I just finished leaf storm by marquez which got me really excited for it. i kind of can´t believe i´m going there! i guess i don´t know what else to say right now or how to wrap up the farm. did you know that your body takes in the most vitamin d through the palms of your hands? or that marigolds are really really good in gardens to keep out bugs. and that petunias protect beans. and you should plant spinach and strawberries together. and dandelions actually help the aromatic quality of herbs....

here are a few pictures, me and beth on the trail to the farm in the mountains, everyone getting ready to go to the creek for the afternoon swim, our room! like camp.

beth packed up her stuff and we left the farm today. i can´t believe 3 weeks has gone by already. for the next couple of days i think we´re going to stay with this lady named martha who´s friends with tina and is a breaadmaker and supposedly super buena onda and has phenomenal gardens that are unreal. also tuesday is extra cookie night where you get to eat the leftovers and sometimes there is soccer being played and she has a tv so we can watch movies. so if one of those three things happened i´d be really happy and i think it will be nice. most people have left the farm now, it´s just been 6 or 8 of us. i´ll go back on thursday for a few more days until the swedes get here and then i´m gone too! it´s been a really rewarding time. right now i´m learning a lot about composting and making garden beds and double digging soil and weeding and a little about permaculture and biodynamic techniques. i wish it was more but there are only so many hours of daylight. yesterday was sort of a birthday party for me because we wanted to have a party and people got a little confused. so we made cinnamon buns and had a fire and got sleepy and went to bed at 11. i also bought this tiny instrument called a kalimba from this man Hans who lives on the farm and makes instruments and panella wine. it makes really pretty sounds. i play it every night before i go to sleep. maybe that´s all. oh no, the most important thing, i forgot! i found a cure to mosquito bites! every time i get one i draw a circle around it in ballpoint pen and within an hour it´s disappeared and doesn´´t ever itch again. i guess the pressure of drawing it cuts off the histamine reaction or something. so my legs are covered in circles and everyone laughs at me but it´s totally worth it, the mosquitos here mean business.

so we´re back in vilcabamba for a few hours. things on the farm got a little crazy this past week but they´re good again. i found out i had parasites, i think from bolivia but maybe from the farm, but i took a bunch of medicine and they´re dead and i have so much more energy than i´ve had in a while. then last thursday tina (the lady who owns the farm) was coming home late at night alone and slipped in the creek and dislocated her kneecap really bad. then the next day since it was the weekend everybody else on the farm went to town for this healing ceremony and beth and i were left alone on the farm for the whole weekend to take care of tina without any medicine or anything. that was kind of weird and i thought about leaving but it´s ok now and everyone´s back and we´re doing lots of work again. yesterday i made a bunch of quiches and black capped raspberry pie. we eat like queens here. or more like we feast. my lostboy name is not "la quiche" cause they liked it so much. i´ve been doing lots of hard work digging out beds to put in new gardens which means serious baretta work but i´m getting strong. we bathe in the creek every day which probably couldn´t be more beautiful or refreshing. it´s kind of like one of those weird cliche utopias except that it´s not at all. i think we´re gonna go to this biological reserve this weekend and then i only have one more week! i don´t know what else. i discovered this totally new type of fruit called palmarosa which is literally the taste of biting into a rose. and there are surinam cherries that are like cherries mixed with tomatoes and passion fruit and papaya and pomegrantite and dates and zapote and oranges and grapefruits and a million other things. i´m reading really good books and drawing some pictures and waking up early. we wake up at 7 every day and hang out and eat breakfast until 8 or 9, then work in the gardens or collecting fruit or cooking until 12:30 then eat and go for a swim then work again until 5 or so, swim, cook and eat dinner by candlelight at dusk, practice salsa and go to bed at 9 or 10. i wish i could put up pictures. maybe i´ll upload some sometime soon. hasta pasta.

hello. we came into town to get our poop tested for parasites and ameobas because there´s this really good clinic here and it only costs $1.50 to get it tested so we figured we might just do it and be safe. nothing to worry about. but the farm! i wish i could put up pictures, it´s the most beautiful place i´ve ever seen. it´s one of the greenest places in the world and the farm is in a valley full of fruit between beautiful mountains with a creek that we bathe in every day and fresh water from a spring up the mountain. the food is delicious, the work is fun, the people are smart and nice and great and we´re having so much fun. there is fruit everywhere. there are about 15 people working on the farm so it´s totally full and thére´s lots to do. not so much besides fruit trees are producing right now but we´re working on a lot of new gardens. beth is great, we have fun. we practice salsa dancing every night. using a compost toilet is surprisingly not bad and hardly even smells. we eat dinner by candlelight every night and go to bed around 9 and wake up at 7. the bugs aren´t terrible, there are these giant ones though called picasenor because supposedly they stung jesus and they are like 3 inches long with bright red wings. i take showers under a chirimoya tree and eat papaya and lime for breakfast and am reading good books and drinking lots of coffee and learning a little about biodynamics and planting gardens and how to make bread and there are funny dogs and cats and i´m learning spanish vocabulary for things like ¨to weed¨ and sawdust and other things i probably wouldn´t learn if i wasn´t here. i guess i don´t really know what to say to explain it here but those are some things and i think that´s good enough.

i´m here and it´s amazing like i can´t even explain. i havent gotten to the farm yet but some people met us at the airport and we´ve been doing things all over ecuador and are about to hike out to the farm now. so i have no time to write things now but man the people are great and i´m going to learn so much and there are millions of fruit trees and i already feel like 3 weeks is not going to be long enough. so you don´t have to worry about anything! this is great.

fuck i'm freaking out and i'm leaving in two hours and i miss chile so much already. it was awful saying goodbye to evelyn and melanie and pauline. and everybody else i just didn't even get to say goodbye to. it's pretty unreal that in a day i'm going to be in another country on a farm and all of the people i've made my life around here are not going to be a part of it anymore. but i guess i'm equally asexcited as sad. so. adios.

new years!