Day 2

Today we woke up at 6:30 for breakfast and hopped on the bus to go to our first flower plantation! We visited Jet Fresh Flower Growers in Cotopaxi, getting away from the city for a bit. They had a bunch of different animals like some very spirited ducks, friendly dogs, and llamas! 

We learned a bunch of different things about the process of growing roses. Our guide showed us how they graft the variety rose plants onto the steams of the “mother plant” which are native to the area. Another interesting thing was that their greenhouses are made with plastic instead of glass. She said that different rose colors have different plastics based on the luminosity necessary, they change the plastic about every 4 years. 

The woman who gave us the tour spoke a lot about what it means to be a boutique farm. She said that it’s mainly about the quality of flowers and the number of varieties grown. Picking varieties of roses to grow is a very important job. In order to achieve success in this business, it is necessary to choose long-lasting varieties and satisfy the market. This is made even more difficult since it takes about 8 months to take that variety into production. I even got to help harvest a rose with the help of an expert who helped me pick one that was ready for harvest. 

I was very impressed with how much they care about getting into the community and caring for their employees. They have a doctor who comes once a week to ensure that their workers are healthy. They especially care for their female employees by providing free birth control and having a laundry service for them and their families. This service is specifically so that when the women go home on the weekends, they can relax a bit more instead of doing this chore. 

At this flower plantation, they also paint roses! This process is done for each flower, not all at once. Their newest addition to this process is called conversation roses. They even made us Pitt ones! 

Next, we got back on the bus and went to Hacienda San Agustin de Calli which is a hotel and farm with Inca ruins. This was very cool because you could see the ways the Inca architecture differed from the Spanish. There are some rooms where we can see how the Spanish were unable to imitate the Inca construction even though they had much more advanced technology. 

While there, we also got to see some of the animals they have like two adorable dogs named Lady Gaga and Maxi! We also got to see some beautiful horses. Our guide told us that they usually have riding lessons, but right now some of the horses are too fat and must go on a diet before they can be put back to work. They later surprised us by letting us feed the llamas! It was very surprising because they all came into the courtyard at once. They were so fluffy and loved the carrots we gave them!

After all of that excitement, we got back on the bus to head to Bios Chocolate. I was so tired and took a much-needed nap on the way! When we got to the factory, our guide told us what classifies a bar as fine flavored. Fine flavor means that the beans have absorbed a secondary flavor unique to the area where the bean was grown. About 3 percent of beans in the world are considered fine flavored and Ecuador is responsible for 70 percent. There are about three categories of secondary flavors: floral, fruity, and wood/nutty. My personal favorite is the bars with a fruity secondary flavor.

After tasting some different chocolates, we went into the factory. Of course, we had to suit up with our stylish hair nets first! It smelled so good when we walked in and I felt like Charlie from Willy Wonka! We had the opportunity to learn a bit about the fermentation process and the different machines used to produce the chocolate. He told us that the use of more modern machines interferes with the flavor of the end product, which I thought was really interesting. After we learned how much work goes into producing our favorite sweets! We even got to try our hand at making chocolate ourselves! 

After a long day, we headed back to our hotel for dinner and that concludes our last day in Quito! 

More later!

Maddie