#3 Duraznillo - First steps in the farmland
Let's work !
Bienvenido a Peru !
It has been a month since we landed in Peru and you are eager to get more news ? No worries, we give you some ! Thirty hours of flights and two stops at Amsterdam and Madrid later, we finally are in Lima. We are in a great mood : the adventure finally begins ! We decide to couchsurf in a peruvian house where 10 young student and workers are living. We are going to stay for a few days to know better Lima, its gastronomy and its night life with Eddy, our host. We have a guest of honor : Maxime, a friend of ours, will stay with us during the first month of our trip. He will then stop in Ecuador to work and learn spanish. We keep a unforgettable memory of these fews days during which we met so many Peruvians who showed so much curiosity, joy and interest toward us. But enough joking now, we leave Lima for more distant lands.
Us posing with our couchsurfer, Eddy, in the colored neighbourhood Barranco
Yvan in its natural surroundings (Parque del amor)
Indeed, we take selfies
We ride north to Chachapoyas. On our road is located Huaraz ; the city is surrounded by the Andes and offers many hiking itineraries and climbing spots. As we aim at testing ourselves, we decide to stop there to explore the surrounding mountains. After hiking the laguna 69, we decide to go deeper in the Andes and walk the Santa Cruz hiking (4 days), which will bring us to a 4750m altitude and let us sleep at negative temperature. We decide to bring and bear everything : tents, sleeping bags and food. These days were physically very intense. Far from the urban excitement, we could recharge and prepare ourselves to deal with the Amazonian forest.
Three hours and a 900m climb later : Laguna 69 !
Our campsite, lost in the middle of the Andes
Punta Union, the highest point of the hike
And now we ride to Duraznillo ! We go to Chachapoyas by bus ; we then take a car and drive for four hours through the Amazonian forest to join the village. No agri-business in sight : Duraznillo is a 300 inhabitants village which got access to electricity two years ago and was finally connected to the road two months ago. It is a total escape : no turists, no hot water, and the children use to play with deadly tarantulas. Everything we love !
Duraznillo
We are quickly told that the Amazonian forest is divided into several pieces. The local authorities then assign it to Peruvian families. Each family owns its own land, called chacra, which they grow to feed themselves. As we arrive, two different families offer to host us so we thus decide to split up. Yvan goes to Sabino, Maribel, Jey et Mileni, and Maxime and Tanguy to Abel, Paula, Giancarlos et Arnold. During our first diner, we discover the food we will soon harvest : yucas, avocado, plantain bananas, peas and coffee. Rice and pastas are the only important product they got from the outside.
From left to right,, Jey, Giancarlos et Arnold
Most of our day is dedicated to going to the chacra and harvesting fruits and vegetables. The three main products we use to bring back are wood (cooking with fire wood), yucas (like manioc) and plantain bananas. The last two are boiled in hot water and and ate at almost every meal. The chacra is a sloped terrain located 45 minutes from the village. We use nothing more than bags, a machete and our arms to harvest. We thus learn how to dig up the yuca, take care of the banana plantation and handle a machete. Getting back to the village is the most physical part of our work since we have to bear everything and climb back to the village for 45 min. We never stopped to be amazed by Abel and Sabino, who do this hard, exhausting and physical work everyday.
Abel and Paula's chacra
Abel cutting the plantain bananas
Except from yuca and bananas, we would find many other vegetables at the chacra. During our stay , we thus had the opportunity to harvest carrots, dig up bituca, and pick peas, oranges and lemons. Our families were also growing corn, avocados and ananas, but not during that season.
Max, the chacra diva
The most important crop of the village is coffee. This is how all families make the most of their money. We arrived at the end of the harvesting season. The coffee tree is a plant which gives coffee beans ; those beans are then picked by hand
Coffee plants
Paula showed us the entire coffee transformation process. Thinking about tasting our delicious self-prepared coffee, we learn how to wash it. Thanks to a grid with large mesh, we remove the skin of each bean. All the beans are then left to dry for 10 to 15 days. This year, Paula and Abel's coffee harvest weighed 700 kg. The beans are sold 2€/kg to a cooperative. As for the coffee we intend to taste, we used a different way : we crush it to extract the beans inside ; those are then toasted and and milled. 30 minutes later we could enjoy it !
Tanguy toasting coffee with love
And now let's talk about the farmyard animals ! We had the great honor of tasting a chicken from Maribel's garden, and a cuy from Paula's livestock. A cuy looks like a guinea pig ; it is also a traditional Peruvian dish. We saw Isabel (who live at Abel and Paula) kill it, remove its hair and empty it with curiosity and - let's face it - some disgust. As for the chicken we did it the same way after a mad chase. Meat is rare product which is served on few important occasions (as the 50th anniversary of Duraznillo school). So we make sure to enjoy a lot the cuy and the caldo de gallina (chicken broth) prepared !
Tanguy gazing at its diner
At 5pm, each day, everyone come play football after working. If you want to play, you have to pay. The winning team takes everything. Unfortunately, as Yvan played miserably, we had to take some money from the crowdfunding campaign to finance his losses. Fortunately, Tanguy's volleyball level allowed him to triumph amongst the women (volleyball is played by women and football by men) and repay his debt.
Cross-village tournament
We also spend a lot of time with the children. They taught us how to find and chase tarantulas. There, snakes, spiders and red ants are common. No worries : they don't go int houses. That is what we thought until Maxime woke up in the middle of the night with a scorpion in his bed and a sting on the head. After a few moments of panic, Abel told us it was an alacran, a non-deadly scorpion. To be honest, it did not really reassure Maxime.
The monster, dead
As they were not working on Sunday, Abel and Sabino showed us inca ruins located high in the surrounding mountains. Be assured that we never thought about seeing so closely the Amazonian forest during our stay in Latin America.
From left to right, Abel, Tanguy, Cara Sucia, Yvan, Sabino and Max
Tarzan and Jane
We were deeply impacted by the way Duraznillo inhabitants live. All the village welcomed us as if we were family and our stay was punctuated by many amazing talks and encounters. People love to tell us that everything is natural in Duraznillo and that nothing come from industry. We are asked many questions about our way of living in France and thus had the opportunity to put in perspective our lives as interns in Paris last year and our lives as farmers today.
And now we go to Ecuador !