Hey everyone!
Even though it has only been two days since my last blog post, it feels like so much has happened. After getting over 8 hours of sleep, I woke up Monday and felt ready to take on our next adventures. We started the morning with the same breakfast that we had before — scrambled eggs and traditional Ecuadorian rolls, and we finished packing our things as we were checking out of our hotel and leaving Quito later in the day. Before we officially left, we put our luggage in a locked storage room in the hotel and our translator, Gabby, joined us to take us to Yumbos, an award-winning chocolate brand, founded in Mindo, Ecuador. It was a short 10-minute walk from our hotel, and we were going here to learn more about the chocolate industry and taste test different type of infused chocolate bars. Some of the chocolate that we tasted were lemon grass, mint, coffee, and tangerine, each having a different percentage of cacao ranging from 60% to 100%. A lot of the chocolates were good, but my favorite was the 85% one and my least favorite was the tangerine. Before giving us each flavor to taste, the chocolatier would explain the difference between the bars and where the ingredients came from, which was very interesting to hear. They also gave us a cup of hot chocolate and a brownie to try, and it was one of the best brownies that I have ever had! We ended our visit with buying chocolate bars from their shop, and I was honestly surprised by their prices. In the United States, these chocolate bars are around $25 each and even getting it directly from the source (wholesale) it was $7 per bar!!
The next thing on our agenda was finding a good place to eat. Our translator took us into Palacio Arzobispal, a food hall type place, that had a variety of places that we could eat from. Even though we were told that we were able to wander off and eat where we wanted, we all ended up eating at the same place, Hasta La Vuelta, Señor. I was starving and wanted to go with a safe option, so I decided to go with a chicken sandwich. Although it was a basic choice, it was one of the best chicken sandwiches that I have ever had! During this time, we also bonded as a group going around the table telling a fun fact about ourselves and different conspiracy theories that we believe in. We ended our time in Quito going to a gift shop within the food hall, walking back to the hotel to get our stored luggage, and hopping on a bus to visit a chocolate factory — an hour outside the city.
The chocolate factory that we visited next was Chocolates Bios. We entered the factory and were seated in an area outside of the worker’s office space. A part owner of the company sat down with us and had several different chocolate bars for us to taste — to put it into perspective the overall tasting lasted 2 hours. The chocolatier gave a presentation of the history of chocolate in Ecuador, the cacao plant, and between each tasting would explain the difference between the chocolates and how they were made. We had crackers to clean our palettes, and a lot of the bars were infused with different berries and fruits. After a while the taste of chocolate started to make me sick, and what really did it for me was the salted caramel one, which was surprising because that is a flavor I usually love. We then put on hair nets, took fun pictures, and entered into the actual factory. We got to see how the chocolate was made, and they even had a chocolate fountain for us to put our head under. I was too full at this point, and I was scared I was going to get a stain, but it was funny watching everyone else try and do it. We finished up the tour with a demonstration on how to properly package small chocolate bars, and we even got to wrap a few ourselves that we got to take with us.
Now that we had explored two different chocolate places, it was time to leave the city of Quito completely and enter Cayambe! At this point, it was very dark out, and we had a long 2-hour bus ride ahead of us. A lot of us ended up getting pretty nauseous because of all of the twists and turns in our path and the bus was pretty hot. We ended up in the countryside, staying in what we called the “Villa,” which belonged to the Picalqui community. We entered into where we were all staying, and the house was straight out of a movie with my favorite part being the living room. We dropped off our things and headed down a path to a separate building where the cafeteria was housed. The cooks had prepared a tortilla wrap with beef, beans, cheese, and guacamole alongside tea. It was pretty delicious, and we decided to end the night sitting by a fire and listening to music.
Now getting into Tuesday, we were woken up bright and early by the sound of roosters that were roaming around the property. Because we came at night, all of us were very curious to see what the place actually looked like and let me tell you the views of mountains surrounding us from the distance were breathtaking! We started the day with breakfast at the cafeteria house where we had scrambled eggs and croissants. As we got to see even more of the property, we saw that the owner of this place had all different types of farm animals such as horses, chickens, cows, and even a turkey. My favorite animal though were the dogs that walked freely around the property coming up to us every chance they got.
Around 9am we boarded our bus again and headed to our first flower farm that we were going to be visiting “Ecuaroscanada S.A.” It was only a 20-minute ride, and we got to visit several of the farms flower beds and learned the process start to finish of how roses are grown. This farm plants over 90,000 roses per acre with each bed consisting of 300-400 roses, and 90 workers are in charge of maintaining the flowers with their shift starting at 6am every morning. It takes 90 days for a rose to be fully developed from it first being planted, and the biggest holiday for this company is Mother’s Day and Russia’s Women’s Day in March. After we completed the tour, they surprised us with two free roses to take with us — I got a pink and a red one.
We then went back to our Villa for lunch and had pork and rice with a bowl of potato soup, and after lunch, we were informed that we were leaving a day early and going to be staying at a different place. I started re-packing my suitcase, and we boarded the bus again to visit the Picalqui communities’ “Casa Comunal” where we got to meet the president and learn more about the initiatives and goals of the community where we had been staying. We then headed back to the Villa, and we got to do one of my favorite things that we have gotten to do so far in Ecuador, which was playing Fútbol with local teens. Even though it started to rain, it added to the experience, and we gave the game our all, and somehow, we ended up winning! Then, we transitioned into volleyball, which was a sport that I more preferred. This experience was just such a beautiful thing to witness. Even though the Ecuadorian teens knew little English and we knew little Spanish, it was amazing how something as simple as a game could bring us all together.
After the teens had to return to do schoolwork, all of us went back to packing and taking in our last couple of hours in the Villa. We took some cute photos, loaded our luggage into the bus at 6:30, and headed over to the cafeteria one last time for dinner. The dinner turned out to be one of my personal favorites so far as it turned out to be pasta! We finished eating, said our goodbyes, and took our bus 1 hour into the city part of Cayambe. Although I was sad to leave, we are now staying in another beautiful hotel with an amazing roof top view of the whole city. It is crazy that we have only been in Ecuador for 4 days, and we are now staying in our 3rd location. I’m not sure what is in store for the next couple of days, but I am excited to continue to have fun in Ecuador and keep blogging my experience!
