Canoa, the organic farm and back to Quito

Preface:
I am catching up on all the time since the last post...
At the organic farm outside Canoa I lost our camera while horseback riding. For this reason, there are no new photos to go along with this post...

After spending a couple days in Canoa battling mosquitos, humidity, rain and waiting for decent surf to arrive we headed out to a nearby organic farm for what sounded like a variety of interesting activities. While the farm's office in Canoa was disorganized, we were hoping that the farm would still be a fun experience. However, upon arriving at the farm we quickly realized we should have heeded the warnings.

The farm presented itself as an example of organic, and environmentally sustainable practices. They run a nearby school, and have a variety of volunteer positions. Despite this, we found that their livestock was poorly cared for, the farm produced very little crops and fed both their volunteers and quests poorly (We had to basically beg the surly kitchen ladies for more food). While we expected rustic accomodations, our small cabana was a bit too rustic for our tastes and lacking in charm.

Rather than recount each day, I'll simply summarize by saying we struggled to milk a cow, made cheese, cake, and caught river shrimp that were eaten by farm staff, rather than us, and rode angry, starving horses to visit a 90 something year old native woman who lived by herself in the jungle with monkeys. We were happy when the experience was over and lamented the sorrowful, malnourished condition of the cats and livestock at the farm.

I still know that there are people out there running successful, respectful organic farms and ecotourism projects, but this was definitely not one of them.

Back in Canoa after a couple nights at the farm, we had a pleasant night's sleep, followed by a miserable bus ride to Quito to purchase a new camera. I dozed off while watching an awful movie on the bus (The Marine II) and we ended up missing our stop and having to backtrack. Angry at our less than desireable experiences in the last few days, we washed our clothes, rested in Quito and prepared to embark on our next journey to the mountainous Quilotoa Loop in the central highlands...