BAÑOS

Banos was one hell of a good time, and in a very different way from Wisdom Forest.

Adventures:
Our first day there Bry and I rented a bugy (we were going to rent motorcycles, and it took us until we sat on them and tried to move to realize they are much more complicated than bikes with motors) and drove it up to the top of one of the numerous enourmous mountains surounding the city. up there we visted a tree house with the biggest swing I have ever seen, and drank milk that was hot from the cow grazing next to us. The way down was even more fun as gravity sped us down the windy mountain road
The same day I went bungi jumping. I fell 40m before the rope caught me. The memory is still sharp and vivid in my mind. I was starring straight down at the moss covered cliffs and gushing river below me. As I continued to fall and to fall, feeling the acceleration grip my stomach, that view of the cliffs and river was burnt deeper and deeper into my mind. There are few things as gripping as free falling.
To finish off the day we got hour long full body massages. It was my first profesional massage, and my body felt fesh, clean, and relaxed afterwards. When our hour was finished they let us lie in the beds for another half hour which was a time of complete physical satisfaction. I did notice the lack of the emotional connection I usually have with my massage partner.
Biking was short lived as Bryan´s bike broke a few miles into the trip and he had to walk it most of the way back. But for those short miles we zoomed down the almost all down hill road between Banos and Puyo with expanses of massive green mountains around us.
My final great adventure was paragliding. I can fly a paraligide even less than I can ride a motorcycle, so I was strapped to the man who was flying. So many times in my life I have looked at a cliff face, steep slope, or even the balcony at camden yards and wished I coould fly off it, and that fatefull day I did! the wind tugged us off the ground we soared aimlessly around for half an hour. whenever I looked at the ground below I would see it rushing by beneath me and get an uncontrolable thrill in my stomach which forced excited laughter out of me. Then I would look up at the mountains and the valcano in the distance and be silenced again by the awe of it all.

The Baths
Banos gets its name from the baths which are heated by the hot springs coming out of the valcano. Bry and I made nearly daily visits to these hot tub pools while we were in banos. The water was murky from its richness of nutrients, and you could feel the goodness soaking through you when you float in it. the options were very hot, super hot, and cold, which made for fun combinations of freezing gasps and burning shouts. in the end we would always setle down in the midle (very hot) and bob lifelessly up and down in utter relaxation

Pizza
Pizza is the food that has tied me and Bryan together since we met, and it runs thick through our veins. In honor of the blood pact we ate at least some pizza every night in Banos. While we did experiment with the down-town-sit-down-resturant pizza, by the end we had setled into habitualy downing huge quantities of Cow Pizza (a great name for a pizza store). It was square, delicous, and big.

Movies
aight so the hostel Transilvania has a huge asortment of great movies to chose from. we watched Thor, Book of Eli, Angels and Demons, Captain America, Basic Instict (it was my third time watching that one and I still wasn´t sure who done it), Wally, and Kill Bill Volume 1. We also watched part of Dark Night when it was playing in the common room, its legit one of the best movies ever. Ah! so good!

Jungle Trip
If that doesn´t sound like enough to fill up a week, its not. Our time in Banos was split up by a three day trip to the Jungle. However, since we weren´t in Banos for the trip it can´t fall under the Banos post, and more will be coming on that trip later

Over View
So hopefully my opening line made you curious enough to read all I wrote, and now I will tell you how Banos differed from Wisdom Forest. Banos was a place of sensation and thrill. It was a place of comfort and ingulgence. My hopes of eating less flew out the window in the face of all that pizza, and I even brok aqutarianism for cocacola twice! My memorable experiences there are of bungi jumping, paragliding, and other exciting activities. While all of these were great fun, there was litle deapth, connection, or emotion to them (not to mention cost me a great deal of money). The movies were all enjoyable, but are of course superficial in the face of real world interaction. For me, Banos was a vacation from the responsibility I have in living. While it was damn fun and I loved it, the city of Banos will always feel like my own tiny litle sin city.

ps. I don´t have much time and there´s no rea reason to edit, so enjoy my misspellings and typos

The Beard

I have shaved my beard and I am keeping it that way.

While most of you may cheer, I want to give my heartfelt thanks to everyone who supported my wiry bush while I had it. It is a beardist world out there, so I appreciate the love.
Why the sudden change of heart? it was very sudden. The thought crossed my mind one morning during yoga (I know, I was supposed to be concentrating on the posture, but bear with me) that I didn't want my beard, and the more I pondered the thought the more it spoke to me. A beard is like a big insulating blanket wrapped around your face at all times. Its wrapped around your face! the part of your body that is probably most important for human communication and self expression. How our energy flows through our body is essential to our health and happiness, and I was giving it a road block in the most crucial area. Two days after the initial thought I got a buzz.
  By Shaving I hoped to make my self more centered, more intentional, freer, looser, younger, more carefree, and lighter. I have felt most of those things, and I think I will shave something like once a month.

Wisdom Forest

Wisdom Forest

What is Wisdom Forest? Well I will tell ya. It is an organic farm and forest restoration project in the Ecuadorian rainforest. It grows all sorts of foods and tries to biodiversify the trees that are growing to replace the forest that was cut down. It’s run by a thoughtful hardworking guy named Bhaga who created the whole project, and does cool stuff like heating the water by running the water line through the compost a bunch of times. It is a magical place, and has been my home for the past three weeks.

The Yoga

I start my day by waking up at 6:30 to do one hour of Bakti yoga. We have an upper deck with no walls that faces due east, so as we stretch and work our bodies we have the golden, morning, equator sun warming our bodies. Bakti yoga is dynamic and we don’t hold posses for very long. It can feel like a real workout at times. The effectiveness is astonishing. In three weeks I went from being able to only touch my toes to being able to tuck my forehead between my knees. As proud as I am of that accomplishment, I have enjoyed even more learning to be in touch with my body and its feelings.

The Work

Over the three weeks I have labored at a large variety of jobs which has included trimming coca trees, weeding all over the farm, preparing compost (which involves getting wood shavings from a nearby carpenter, getting rotten vegetables from the market, sorting through the rotten vegetables and taking out all the trash (ranging from straws to diapers), and then mixing the two), planting crops, harvesting crops, and other simple farm tasks. We grow uca, coca, bananas, plantains, Chinese potatoes, tomatoes, pineapple, sugar cane, and much more. The plants are not planted in rose, but rather are a scattered mass of vegetation, which helps with permaculutur, but makes things hard to find and maintain. I learned a lot through the work. Of course I learned about planting techniques, the workings of plants, and how to use a lot of farm tools, but I was also taught a lot about really working. The main farmer Pablo worked so furiously and efficiently that I could hardly help but try and emulate him. I like to think I have picked up some of the ability to maintain focus on the task at hand and work consistently hard at it for a long time.

The Food

Oh god the food! Three meals a day we were served platters fresh platters of fried spiced and sauced fruits and vegetables. Every single meal was a masterpiece, as beautiful as it was tasteful. On occasion we would be treated with chocolate cake, made from the chocolate we grew on the farm. I assure you no food, not even pizza, has ever brought me such pleasure.

The People

A place like Wisdom Forest attracts a lot of incredible people, so I am always learning from and making new friends. We range from a simple five to a boisterous dozen people. Once at one dinner table we had people from the USA, Columbia, London, Ecuador, Ireland, Mexico, Germany, Australia, and Portugal. I have met a lot of very magical people and learned so much from all of them.

Change?

Wisdom Forest has changed me, though it can be hard to put a finger on exactly how. Perhaps I am more centered or more aware. Maybe I have a stronger capacity to feel? I no longer eat savagely and wolf down food, but chew and swallow each bite before taking another one, and I no longer feel pride in being able to eat monstrous amounts. Do I sit straighter? I dunno. I shaved my beard because I felt like it was an insulatory mask that inhibited energy flow, and I left the character who took manly pride in a big bad ass beard along with the one who ate everything. I hope not to give the impression that I am calm and serious now, I hope to always remain energetic and silly, but something isn’t quite the way it was.