Farming - The Mama Roja way

It has been a week and a half but we have been busy, and are thriving! After a day and a half of travelling and a day off around the Jesuit ruins at San Ignacio, we arrived at Mama Roja. It sits deep in a valley in the middle of sub tropical jungle. It is such an amazing place, very hot (35 degrees most days), and there is life absolutely everywhere. We work in the mornings then stop at lunch, and enjoy a siesta or tinker about in the afternoon shade. Although it doesn´t sound like hard work, in the heat it can be! But more than anything it is so enjoyable.

We have a little tent snuck up a jungle track near the yoga platform (in progress). There is no electricity, a compost toilet, and everything is cooked on a wood burning stove. When in San Ignacio, we realised that we would not have another opportunity to have a shower for a while... but who cares when you can bathe in a river whenever you like. Yesterday, after 55 mm of rain in the morning the waterfall was flowing beautifully.

It feels so remote at times, expecially as we are at the bottom of the valley and all around us is jungle. We are learning to live with nature, we work when we can rather than to a schedule, and half our clothes have gone pink from the red soil. The different pace of life really hit us when we arrived, you can't rush things. Ben has even learnt that the snakes (only three sightings so far) are not out to get him, and if you leave them alone, they leave you alone too. Today is our first day in the outside world in 10 days.

We took the opportunity to buy yarn (Rachel is learning to crochet) and buy some meat and nuts, (the farm food is vegetarian, and slightly lacking in protein, so we thought we would stock up). Next stop is the pizza restaurant, the food is great and very healthy, but it is nice to have something different. Mostly we eat, potaotes, eggplants, carrots, squash, tomatoes, onions, garlic, cucumber, eggs, and milk from the farm cow - Paloma.


During the mornings we have learned to make adobe bricks, dug a well (partially), laid foundations for a bathroom, gathered and chopped firewood, learned to cook on a wood burning stove, and learned countless little things like how to make good compost, water saving tricks, and how to dig burrowing insects out of our toes.


Still to come while we are at Mama Roja, building the walls for the bathroom, finish the yoga platform, milking Paloma, building a natural damn, experimenting with solar cooking and lots more!

Watch this space!