Mickey Dodgers and man hunting....

Apparently, I should be trying to meet a man, everyone else is getting married and having kids, it seems to be the thing to do. A list of top ten places to meet men always includes weddings. I've been at two over the past month. Sure, I met men there but they were the groom, the priest, my father and other peoples husbands and boyfriends. Call me old fashioned, but although my standards are getting lower by the minute I would prefer to end up with someone whom is neither attached nor a relation of mine.

Church is another place these lists recommend you go to meet men. Church! I feel edgy in them as it is, years of indoctrination by the nuns or "Mickey dodgers" as my Dad calls them didn't work on me. I'm just not buying the whole walking on water, loaves and fishes magic trick stuff. "I don't believe a word of it," I told my secondary school Religion teacher when she'd mention stories from the Bible. "Well, you will when you're standing at Heavens gates and you're not allowed in," she told me as she searched my scalp for the numbers 666 and I prodded her with my trident.

Prod prod prod, she deserved it.

I'm a born sceptic, I was the kid who always looked for the hidden bottom on the magicians hat or wished I had a scissors to cut David Copperfield's strings has he flew around over his audience. On balance I'd definitely rather have Jesus (turns water into wine apparently) as a dinner guest than the likes of Uri Geller, seriously who would want him over, bending all your spoons? Imagine a dinner party with magicians, there'd be rabbits everywhere, you could never have soup with Uri around and David Copperfield wouldn't sit in his seat, he'd be flying about shouting "Look at me, look at me" and levitating all the guests. So annoying.

Uri, bend your own fucking spoons.




My guests don't like to be levitated, David.

Another weird place these shit lists recommend you go to meet men is the water-cooler. Now, this might work if only I had an office to go to. I read that "romance can be sparked at the water-cooler". Actually, I'm interested in trying this one, I can see myself seductively drinking from the tap and flirting with a cute guy from an office, clearly it wouldn't be MY office as I'm unemployed. If I can break into someone else's office though I think I have a good shot at getting both a date and being fabulously re-hydrated. My opening lines could be things like....


"I love water, do you love water?"

"I drink so much water, I'm always going to the toilet."

"How many times a day do you go to the toilet?"

"Do you enjoy going to the toilet?"

The gym is another place that's recommended. Now, actually I am in the gym quite a bit these days trying to shift off my South American weight. Problem is I don't know what kind of men find a puce face and a heaving sweaty body on a woman attractive? There's probably some strain of sick pervert out there that would like that kind of thing, the type that are into bestiality maybe. I think I'll pass on that one too come to think of it.

The search continues.

So, what's the plan now?

I got back from my ten month trip around South America just over three weeks ago and for some reason people think I should have the rest of my life planned out. But I wonder, what makes them think I’m not already living the life I want? Maybe I've always dreamed of being unemployed, thirty and moving back in with my parents. Sure, it has its down sides such as being told to “stop whining” and being accused of not knowing how to cook potatoes but the positives by far out weigh the negatives. So, to the next person who wonders what my plan is, I ask “What’s YOUR plan? You can’t seriously be happy with being financially responsible and having a job to go to everyday?” I recommend you all move back in with your parents, it’s not only the way backwards but also the way forwards.

Question: What’s hot?

Answer: Living with your parents in your thirties.

Question: What’s not hot?

Answer: Everything else.

My parents are (surprisingly) happy to have me back living with them. My Dad recently said to me “Your mother was worried you’d come back a drug addict”, so by coming home without a drug problem I have clearly surpassed their expectations and made them proud in the process.

There is actually a terminology for us thirty year olds whom for one reason or another have moved back home with our parents, we are referred to as “The Boomerang Kids” as in kids that they’d thought they’d gotten rid of but we’ve ricochet back to hit them hard in the face. Apparently, this cohabitation can take many forms, ranging from highly independent, separate-household arrangements to situations that mirror the high dependency of pre-adulthood. I fall into the latter of these two categories.




Boomerang Kids!!

I'm assured by other Boomerang Kids that there is no stigma attached to being in this situation due to the recession which excuses unemployment and moving back in with the folks. “Freeloader? Me? No! Why, I’m a Boomerang Kid!” All my life I’ve wanted to belong to a group like this. I considered joining other elite organisations such as Alcoholics Anonymous or Narcotics Anonymous, but apparently one of the entry requirements is that you have to have a severe addiction to get in, they won’t even look twice at you unless you’ve recently woken up lying in a pool of your own vomit or tried to sell your eyes for money to buy gear. I want to be in a club, yes, but one with such stringent entry requirements? I’m not so sure. So imagine my surprise and joy when I heard of this fabulous term “Boomerang Kid” the criteria for which I already fill and on balance seems better than being an alcoholic or a junkie when you think about it. The recession has made all of this possible, thank you recession, take a bow.

Living at home with my parents again is exciting. How far back will I actually regress I wonder? Will they have to say “This is our daughter Niamh, she’s thirty but has the mental age of an eleven year old?” Or will it be more of a case of “Just ignore our daughter, she loves to eat crayons.” Will I end up playing outside with the girls from across the road? Will my parents time me whilst I sprint to the local shop? Will I put on puppet shows for their friends? Jump into their bed for morning snuggles on the weekends?

I’d like to start a support group for the other Boomerang Kids. I can educate them on what to do when their parents get too old to clean their rooms for them. I've big plans for my parents. Once they lose the use of their legs I won’t just shove them in a home, I’ll get remote controlled wheel chairs for them, controlled by me of course. I’ll have weekend races with the parents of the other Boomerang Kids. We’ll also get together on birthdays for parties with games like pass the parcel. Of course the parcels will be filled with valuables from our parents houses, if the parents object we’ll just remote control them out of the room….Easy Peasy!

Question: What’s hot?

Answer: Remote control parents and Boomerang Kids!

Final Blog Entry: It's all over and I wasn't kidnapped!

So, the trip has come to an end and thankfully I am going home in one piece and did not end up being held captive in an outdoor cage as was a fear of mine before I left home for South America. Luckily for Julie we never got threatened with a kidnap situation and I didn't have to resort to "Plan A", which was pushing her towards the captives and begging them to take her and let me go. No point in us both spending eternity in a living hell, being starved and lying in our own waste and who knows, she might even have enjoyed it! I would of course have helped with the rescue mission for her by posting photos on facebook to remind people what she looked like and telling her family that she will be alright, that she is a fighter, a survivor and that she put up quite the struggle when I handed her over to the kidnappers and then helped them blindfold her.

Julie on the right....would fight like a cage fighter if kidnappers took her. I would run like the wind!

I asked Julie what she won't miss about travelling and immediately she said "Finding pubic hairs in hostel beds." Unsurprisingly, I share her thoughts on this. We also are not going to miss ham and cheese sandwiches, which we ate a million of, sweet bread, eggs, which we also ate a million of, cheese puffs, cold showers, not being able to flush toilet paper down the loo and being stared at all the time....ALL THE TIME! I am definately not going to miss being robbed, the quota of bad luck for my whole life having been filled during this trip and I am not going to miss putting on weight from eating shit food on buses. Related to this is the picture below, which was beautifully illustrated by my good friend Jason.


I am the blimp in the stunning green dress and the two match stick figures are my parents meeting me off the plane. My Mom says to my Dad "Oh dear, she really did enjoy herself" and my Dad replies "Yes, very much so."

This is the beautiful Jason in a dress of his own!


I've been travelling for almost ten months, in this time I've taken hundreds of buses, been to eight countries, learned quite a lot of Spanish and had the best time ever. I suppose after such a long time away and after doing and seeing all the amazing things I have, I should reflect upon my experiences and wonder "How has this trip changed me?" Today I thought long and hard (for a full twenty seconds or so) about this question and then realised that I haven't changed at all! You'd think I'd be a better, more enlightened person for it, I'm not! Obviously I was pretty perfect to begin with...obviously.

I did some quite risky activities here, where usually because of a lack of health and safety standards I was genuinely afraid for my life. One especially scary incident was in Tupiza, Bolivia, I was playing cow girl for two days, our guide was a fourteen year old boy who had no idea how to safely lead a group and at one point made us cross a very wide, deep and dangerous river with a very strong current. My horse totally freaked out and gave up swimming letting us get washed down river, I was frantically kicking and cursing at him, which surprisingly did nothing. My heart beat rapidly accelerated as I became aware that I was in genuine danger. I saw the totality of my future life, a life not yet lived flash before my eyes in chronological sequence and extreme detail. I saw myself sitting at my desk for forty years, my face ravished from years of heavy drinking and my body bloated from a Mars bar addiction I develop after my cosmetic surgery goes wrong. I saw my retirement party, a farewell card with thirty Euros in it which I spend on Mars bars, a compulsion to blow up the town hall itching at my brain all the time, a short jail sentence, the words "He told me he was eighteen your honor" being mentioned, a cross dressing husband and an unhealthy obsession with Enrique Iglesias. Clearly the horse and I made it to the other side and we both lived to tell the tale, although in his version I am to blame for our near death experience. So, I survived to live another day, that town hall and young boy could be in trouble after all!

I fly back to Ireland tonight armed with memories of beautiful scenery, trekking, a huge earthquake, a missing leprechaun, muggings, drunken nights, an organic farm, hundreds of buses, music, fiestas, cool people, beaches, a special orange rain coat and lots and lots of laughing. I have loved every minute of the trip and also loved writing this blog, which is both a harmless and legal way for me to vent my insanity as well as a log of my travels. Thanks for reading it, you must be crazy too. I am going home to live with my parents, which is exactly what every thirty year old wants to be doing, thirty, single and unemployed in a recession, the possibilities are endless!!

Ciao Ciao!

Here are some of the things I won't forget....

Above: The organic farm in Ecuador, where I shovelled shit and learned about pineapples.




Above: The Inca Trail, Machu Picchu, Peru.


Above: Bolivia, my favorite country.


Above: Bungee jumping, Argentina.


Above: Paragliding on my 30th birthday in Cochabamba, Bolivia. I like wearing a helmet.

Above: Being a cowgirl, Tupiza, Bolivia. I had a helmet on again.



Above: Carnival, Oruro, Bolivia.


Above: Death Road Cycle, Bolivia and another helmet.



Above: The glacier, Calafate, Argentina. We watched the glacier and ate ham and cheese sandwiches!



Above: Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. The most amazing city ever! No helmet.

Above: Salt Plains, Uyuni, Bolivia and my new friend Susan!



Above: Going on the piss in La Paz, Bolivia and meeting my Slovakian friend Petra!


Above: The Panthanal, Brazil. Memorable....where I realised exactly how much of a city person I am!



Above: Colca Canyon Trekk, Peru.

Above: The Earthquake, Pucon, Chile. We were in this house, it was a shakin'!



Above: Climbing this Volcano, Pucon, Chile.




Above: Happy at the top of the Volcano! Possibly my favorite day of all time! Another helmet.



Above: Sand surfing in Peru, a tour gone very very wrong!




Above: Living it up on ranch in Argentina with my Mom.



Above: Patagonia, Argentina. Wow!




Above: Doing fuck all.




Above: Taking buses and crossing borders.





Above: Overcoming my hatred/ fear of birds and wearing one as a helmet.



Above: Hand gliding over Rio, Brazil, where I wore another helmet and lost half my arm.

That is it, Gracias!!!


EL FIN!

Colombia; Julie, me and our large craniums!

After leaving the farm, we headed north (by bus of course) edging further towards the Ecuador/ Colombia border. Ecuador has so far been the worst country in South America for dangerous driving, which is a prize I thought could never be taken from the Bolivians, how wrong I was! A yearning for speeding and overtaking trucks or other buses on blind corners must be part of the criteria for becoming a bus driver in Ecuador, perhaps it is the ONLY criteria. Feeling totally helpless in those situations I just close my eyes and hope for the best (i.e. living).

Now that I am in Colombia, I have a new fear, one which I seem to have saved exclusively for travel here, which is that the bus will be hijacked by rebels. Whilst getting night buses here I watch with great interest as passengers get on and breathe a sigh of relief when they’re not wearing a balaclava or carrying a gun! Surprisingly I don’t want to spend my 30’s chained to a radiator.

Potential future holiday snaps......

Where I spent September 2010 - January 2014

January 2014 - Current

The other funny thing about buses in South America is that they actually show movies on board. You can be on the shittest of buses, the windows won’t close, the wheels are practically falling off and the driver is drunk, but you’re meant to sit back and enjoy the entertainment. They don’t show the type of films you would expect such as a Disney or family friendly ones to ensure the non corruption of some of the children that are usually on board, no…they show war or Kung Fu movies with violent scenes of amputation, gruesome torture, murder and often sexual assault. The speakers are usually broken so the films are blaring at top volume. I once got onto a night bus in Bolivia, it sounded like I was in the middle of crossfire, it was pitch black except for the glare off the T.V and all I could hear was deafeningly loud gunshots, which continued for about an hour until the film was over. Bang bang!

In Ecuador, Julie and I spent hours in the Panama hat factory choosing from an array of hats, which surprisingly were large enough to fit our gigantic heads. I have a massive head, it’s astonishing how my neck can withstand the weight of it. I love hats, but usually can’t get any to fit me at home and Julie has the same problem, two big headed freaks on tour. So, we were both very excited when we tried on small hats, hopefully asked for “Mas grande?” and got a “Yes!” in response. We had found the holy grail of hats, we bought four between us and another five when we headed to a market further north in Ecuador where we found a stall with more giant ones.

The "hat stall man" (his official name) on the best day of his life with Julie and the orange rain-coat (of course).

Hats..."Do you have 'freak' size please?"

You can’t do anything about having a big head, weight loss makes no difference whatsoever. Never shall I hear the words “Oh, your cranium is looking so thin!”But, isn’t a large head a sign of a big brain and therefore intelligence, you ask?” Well, I thought of that myself but then asked, ‘Does an intelligent person forget where they are half the time and wonder how they got there? Does an intelligent person book accommodation in one town and then go to another? Does an intelligent person wonder, ‘What happens when I push this button?’ and then realise there is no button?’ I am of course referring to my travel companion, her name escapes me but I know she has a large head.

I bought this blue hat in Peru, it's good and stretchy!

We stopped off along the way to Colombia in a town called Otavalo in northern Ecuador. The men and women here dress in traditional get up, the men in three quarter length black trousers, black boots, ponchos, black hats and with their hair in a long plait worn at the back (kinda creepy). The women wear Japanese Kimono type long robes which reach the floor, flat shoes, blankets folded over and over again and worn as hats, peasant style white blouses with embroidered flowers and loads and loads of orange and gold jewellery, including layers of beads worn on both wrists in a tribal like way. Of course, Julie and I like magpies were attracted to the bracelets and tried some on, they had to be tailored to get around our large wrists meaning that we had to buy them. They are probably the kind of thing that I think will be cool to wear at home "It’s from Ecuador!" I’ll say as I proudly show off my warrior style bracelets thinking how great I look, but really I’ll just look like a dick.

I'll be dressed like this when I arrive at Dublin airport.

We eventually made it to Colombia a couple of weeks ago. It took me a while to warm to the place as at first we passed through some cities and towns, which were really quite dodgy, poor and chaotic. Since then, we have gone to a couple of really beautiful places, including one tiny beach resort on the Caribbean coast, which was so remote we had to get men on motor bikes to take us there, via a very isolated, long, muddy lane way totally off the beaten track. As I grabbed onto Rapheleos waist I thought “Here I am in Colombia on the back of a motor bike with a strange man (again!)” and heard my Mom’s voice “Don’t take any risks!” Uh oh! The beach resort was fabulous and Julie and I spent two days just lying in hammocks chilling out and laughed that once again we found ourselves in a beautiful romantic setting!

Our resort.
Our beach where I hoped Julie would propose.

The one thing that stands out about Colombia which we weren’t warned about is the sleaziness of the local men. We are used to being stared at and cat called in South America, but we have never experienced anything like the harassment we are getting here. We can’t walk anywhere without men staring at our chests, trying to stand in front of us, hissing at us, making kissing noises and shouting at us. The men here are tall, which makes them more intimidating than the midgets in other countries such as Bolivia and Peru, though they weren't anywhere near as sleazy there.

We have been followed twice by men, one of which we had to go into a shop to avoid. One man the other morning walked by us and said “Hello the grand Maracas” as he stared directly at our chests! Okay, that was kind of funny, but the rest of it is really unnerving and is impossible to let just wash over you as it is happening with literally every single man we walk past. Now, I am not in some way or other trying to indicate that I can be considered attractive, I am the least attractive I have ever been, all you have to do is read my other blog entries to know that there ain’t no vanity going on here! My clothes are wrecked, I look a mess and I really don’t care, these men don’t seem to care either!

Even the police do it, we walked past a large group of them, they stopped talking, elbowed each other, nodded in our direction, turned and watched us walk past. I had my sunglasses stolen a week ago (robbery number four, how special am I!?), they were taken off the table of a café whilst I was in the toilet, Julie was actually sitting at the table but a man distracted her and someone else took them. I couldn’t face making yet another claim with pervy police so I didn’t bother.

On the other hand, we have met some nice Colombians, including one very cute, young Colombian boy/man called Andreas, who was on one of our buses, sat beside Julie and bought us both two bracelets made of thread with the Colombian colours to welcome us to his country. We chatted to him for a few hours, he offered to buy us food from the sellers that got on the bus in between giving us random compliments. He didn’t stare at us, didn’t follow us and was polite, we liked him and want more like him (but maybe slightly older and taller!)

So, we are making our way towards southern Colombia to find some trekking, paragliding and other activities suitable for large headed people. The countdown to going home is well underway, which we have mixed feelings about! It will be impossible to stay in the one spot for longer than three nights. We have taken over seven hundred hours of buses since November, that’s over a month and a half, night and day of just sitting! How did we have time to do anything else!? Maybe when I get back to Dublin I’ll keep getting buses in and out of town, all day for the first few weeks to help me adjust to the "settled life" again! OH HOW WILL I ADJUST!!?

Ecuador: Sleep deprivation and unoriginal roosters!

I have never experienced fatigue like I did on my final week of working on the farm. It was the kind of exhaustion where if I blinked longer than necessary I would fall into a deep coma and not awaken until the year 2011 when the world will be governed by the robot – human race mentioned in my previous blog entry. I was dull, listless and mentally retarded. My body ached, lifting my legs felt like trying to wrestle them out of quick sand and it were as though someone had replaced my arms with heavy concrete boulders. Who would have thought that three weeks of sleep deprivation, rationed food, breaking and lifting rocks, carrying bags of sand, weeding full fields by hand and shovelling mounds and mounds of shit would be so hard?

"Help me! I have work to do and I can´t move!"

There were five of us volunteers (unselfish people who deserve your respect) sharing a bedroom in a bamboo structure with gaping holes where in any ordinary place a wall should be, but on the farm “inside is the new outside” it seems. If it wasn’t the cats that climbed in through the gaps to fight in the middle of the bedroom that kept me awake at night, it was the insects, some as large as mice and others with horns trying to bulldoze their way through my mosquito net and if it wasn’t the insects it was the frogs croaking, which sounded more like giants retching or worst of all, it was the roosters.

These little delights would kick off at 3:30am each morning and “Cockadoodle-doo” their asses off well past 5:40am which was when I had to get up to feed the pigs. One rooster in particular was extremely vocal and had a distinctive hoarse voice, that of perhaps a very heavy smoker. He was usually the first to start in the wee small hours with a loud and proud “Cockadoodle-doo,” the” doo” part was croaky and deep and sounded like it should have been followed by the cough up of some phlegm. One second later, another rooster, fainter and further away would respond back with a “Cockadoodle-doo”. The smoker rooster would reply with.....what a surprise “Cockadoodle-doo” and this unoriginal and very loud exchange would go on for hours and hours. “Have they nothing else to say to one another?” I thought as I pressed my ear plugs (which by the way are called “Tampons for the ears” in South America) further and further towards my cortex.

A rooster smoking and also looking homosexual.

As I lay there, my efforts to sleep being over ruled by this broken record of “Cockadoodle-doos,” I imagined a hard of hearing hen standing beside the smoker rooster asking “What did he say?” referring to the neighbouring rooster. The smoker rooster tells her “He said ‘Cockadoodle-doo’”. “Ooooh!” she replies, “Well, what are you going to say back?” “I think I’ll say ‘Cockadoodle-doo’” he tells her as he puffs on a cigar. “Good one,” she replies.

The next morning in the coop, the hens gather around for a gossip. One says to another “Did you hear what that bastard rooster from up the road said last night?” “What?” the hens ask in anticipation. “He said ‘Cockadoodle-doo!’” Gasps of horror and surprise. “He did not!” they exclaim in disbelief. “He did, I tell you” says the hard of hearing hen delighted to be the centre of attention but wheezing from years of passive smoking.

Please roosters, I’ve listened to you “Cockadoodle-doo” for weeks now, try something different, “Cockadoodle-dandy, cockadoodle-don’t”, just branch out, there are other words out there and if you’re intelligent enough to log onto a computer to read this blog, you’re smart enough to expand your vocabulary.

My morning job last week was to feed the pigs and clean out their pens. I would flop out of bed in the black of the morning before breakfast and shuffle still half asleep over to where they live. These pigs are bigger than any I have ever seen before, they’re actually more like pink horses. By mid week they had started to associate me with getting fed and would growl, snarl and grunt when they saw me, standing on their hind legs, drooling with their front trotters placed on the wall whilst they tried to climb over it (fat chance fatties). A more needy or insecure person may have taken their actions as a compliment, but I have to admit that I was scared of them especially as last weekend I watched “The Silence of the Lambs 2”, which includes a horrifying scene where pigs eat a human to death. I fed them their wet oat type meal, which I had to stir with my entire arm (elbow deep) as quickly as possible, trying not to let them sense my fear and shuffled back to bed for a 20 minute nap.

"Good morning Niamh, I want to eat you".

It wasn’t only me who was feeling exhausted during the last week, all the other volunteers were the same. Whenever there wasn’t a shovel in our hands, or large rocks in our arms, we were napping. We would sit around waiting for our orders from the local farm guys, our eyes shut, heads bent forward, not even talking to one another, our energy zapped. Luckily as a group we all got along really well, which made the hard work all the easier as we would all laugh about it. Throughout the three weeks we bonded over tough work and various types of ailments, Julie, Susan and Shad all picked up blood sucking ticks, Shads being located on his rear end, which had to be removed using a tweezers by Dario (man who runs the farm) and Julies which was on her back was removed by me, our friendship reaching new levels as a result. Jutta got stung by something on her foot, which made walking difficult, Henry, Lynn (who kept falling face first into puddles) and Luke all picked up colds, which excited medicine man Dario as he got to practice his home remedies and I got a large splinter wedged in my foot that I am still ignoring. Another special moment we all shared last week was when a dead goat was discovered on the farm and we all pitched in to dig its grave. It was one of those typical “Here I am in Ecuador digging a grave for a goat” moments, you know the type, dime a dozen.

Susan (volunteer) catching 40 winks in between shovelling shit.

Luke catching a few quiet moments.

But not everyone on the farm was tired.

So, with very special times shared together we said our sad goodbyes and left the farm last Friday for our various destinations. Armed with a little more knowledge about our planet and alot more hatred for roosters, the very final leg of my trip awaits, Cockadoodle-WHU!!

Ecuador: The Farm, Robots and Swimming in Chemicals....

I crawled slowly through the field on my hands and knees in the Ecudorian rain, pulling up weeds as I went with wet mud seeping through my clothes. Occassionally, I stopped to scratch an itch, hoping not to contract a tick from the surrounding long grass and thought “Why am I doing this again?” I was nearing the end of my first week of working as a volunteer on an organic farm in Ecuador and was definitely finding the physical work exhausting and in sharp contrast to the ethos I have been strictly following thus far on my trip of “Do nothing”. For eight months I have not had to follow any kind of routine, have done whatever I’ve wanted to with no need to act responsible or be accountable to anyone (not even Jesus). Therefore, having to get up at 5:40am each day to commence work, waiting for a bell to ring to announce when my meals are ready and only leaving the confinement of the farm at weekends has been both difficult and totally crazy.



Me and the other volunteers, I am the good-looking one at the front.


At first, I also struggled with the diet served on the farm, breakfast consists of fruit and lunch and dinner primarily equals rice and beans. The food is all organic, and apart from the occasional suicidal bug is all vegetarian too. Now, I’m no doctor, so let me draw upon facts, bare meagre facts verified by books and figures of which there can be no doubt. Based on this diet of mainly rice and beans, devoid of any chemicals, a team of doctors conducting mass physicals on the farm might find us all dead within a month. “It appears this one died of a rice overdose”, Dr. Hardbody might exclaim whilst examining my limp lifeless hand which in Da Vinci Code style is pointing at a bowl of rice. He looks at Julie, “This one in the orange rain coat appears to have consumed too many beans. What a mess!”

After week two on the farm however, I think I am adapting. My muscles had less spasms this week and the fantasy I regularly engaged in during week one of happily immersing myself and doing the backstroke in a large vat of chemicals has been drawn upon less. Perhaps the ethos of Dario, the small moustached Ecuadorian man who runs the farm and talks about “his vision” is rubbing off on me, or perhaps I have been brainwashed? Who cares either way? Yawn. Dario, is a mild mannered pleasant man who chooses to dress from head to foot in white (even his wellington boots are white), which is a highly impractical fashion choice for shovelling shit and feeding pigs although it leaves him ready for competing in Wimbledon all year round.


The farm, is located about 8 hours by bus from Quito (the capital) and has been in operation since the 1970’s. In terms of respecting the environment, it is a pretty unique albeit extreme place. We eat off plates made from fruit, which are disinfected in grapefruit juice, the toilet paper and all cleaning products are biodegradable, electricity is solar powered, there is no hot water, animals are given priority over humans and are even played classical music in the mornings to “relax them” and chemicals of any kind are never ever used. Now, when I am on my knees pulling up weeds in the rain or being told to take my time and make sure I plant the crops with “positive energy”, a yearning to use chemicals either on the plants or indeed myself fills me and my mind wanders. Chemicals make things grow faster, bigger and makes things more aesthetically pleasing, so why not combine the use of chemicals with robotics and create a whole new race, I wonder? The result could would be an altogether more attractive and interesting new breed of people, imagine the possibilities! We could have humans with unbelievably pert bums and inbuilt ice machines or men with perfectly chiseled jawlines who can also pick up a wi-fi connection and reach to the bar using their extra long extendable arms! Perhaps I should mention my vision to Dario this week?



Eating with the natural humans.



I would much rather be having breakfast with this guy!

There are eight of us volunteers in total consisting of five girls and three boys from the US, Germany and Sweden, I fall into the “girl” category. As we work together weeding or breaking rocks up during the week and eat our rationed food, we wonder if we are in some kind of prison, rehab or whether it’s fat camp? At weekends we are released into the local town invariably to spend the weekend consuming as much toxin filled crap as possible. I bit into a burger on Friday night and a kind of wild feeling came over me. Meat had never tasted so good and the chemical treated vegetables made my mouth water.



Mutant vegetables? Yes please!

Other workers on the farm consist of some native Ecuadorians whom I will sometimes chat with whilst we are machetting crops, making barbed wire fences or breaking rocks, light work, that kind of thing. Ecuadorians who get married young, practically whilst still in the uterus, seem to have a short list of questions they want to ask and I have lost count at how many conversations I have had with them that have gone like this...

Ecuadorian man: What is your name?

Me: Niamh.

Ecuadorian man: Niff.

Me: Niamh

Ecuadorian man: Niff, Niff.

Me: More or less.

Ecuadorian man: Do you like to dance?

Me: Sometimes.

Ecuadorian man: Do you like music?

Me: Yes.

Ecuadorian man: Are you married?

Me: No.

Ecuadorian man: How old are you?

Me: Thirty.

Ecuadorian man: (Gasps in horror and shakes head) Thirty and not married?

Conversation ends.

A local woman sat beside Julie on a bus and had that very same conversation with her only hers ended like this.

Local woman: It’s too late for you.


In other ways, Ecuadorians appear quite reserved and somewhat shy. At fiestas for example the dance floor will typically remain clear for a long time with people just staring at one another as they sit on the sidelines, no one wants to make the first move. When they do eventually dance with one another they look anywhere but directly at the person they are dancing with, over their shoulders or at their feet, but never in the eyes, which is apparently considered a come on.



Good job you can’t see my eyes, you’d be helpless.

So, although it is hard work, I am enjoying life on the farm and will enjoy life off the farm all the more when I eventually leave it. I will be happy when the end of next week comes and I can get back on the road. Colombia awaits and I hear they have chemicals there! Working on the farm has definately been a good and eye opening experience and I ask myself if I will take any lessons from my time there, perhaps change the way I live when I get home, eat an all organic diet, grow my own vegetables? The answer is "no". Although I will be more aware of how farming works and have more questions about it now, the ways of the farm are idealistic and work well in Ecuador in that particular site, but it would be next to impossible to live like that at home. However, it has been an experience I will not forget, or maybe I will with the use of chemicals. What was I talking about again?