Finca Aloha

When staying with locals and they offer something – you can’t say no!
We found our homestay through a tip off from a fellow traveller and organised it through the daughter, Suzana, one of the owners of the dive shop we used. We shared a room with Robbie, the 21 y.o son home from uni in Guayaquil, were fed fresh coconuts and passionfruit by the dad, Carmilo, and I gave a swimming lesson to Suzana’s baby son and spent the afternoon with her and her mum.

Arriving back from our morning swim in Las Grietas (see previous post) we were met by Carmilo – the always happy dad at our casa (house). After chatting for a bit in our horrendous Spanglish, Carmilo offered to take us out to the family’s farm in the highlands. We jumped at the chance for a local experience.

After a 20 minute drive and almost forgetting the dog (who ran along the road for a while before being remembered and jumping in!), we arrived! Carmilo was proud to show off his farm, and led us straight to the lava tunnels. A couple of days before we had gone out to El Chato, but this experience was completely different! The intial ladder was almost the only human modification. Led by Camilo’s torch and our own small knockoff Maglite, we scrambled up rock faces, squeezed through cracks in the rocks and helped push and pull each other through the passes.

Magma once flowed through these tunnels and the rock formations were impressive. We tried not to think about the earthquake that had struck Guyaquil only 30-something hours before as we clambered through the gap in the earth.

Once outside in the blaring heat, we set about collecting as many passionfruit as we could that had fallen to the ground. Ripened from the sun they were sweet, but kind of sour and warm – absolutely delicious!

We collected some bananas, lemons and found a giant tortoise hanging out by the lagoon. Carmilo said it was big enough to be a couple of hundred years old!

We checked out his treehouse, helped choose a pool and bar site (he hopes to have campers come and stay!) and drank and ate fresh coconuts and maracuya (passionfruit) juice – Craig’s new obsession!