This morning we headed to Yunguilla, a community located in a cloud forest. The community is amazing because in the past, they took all of their land and survived by cutting down their forests. About 15 years ago, they took a risk, and partnered with a foundation and started to focus on conservation. Now, they don't do deforestation anymore. They work on tourism, conservation, and production. They make jam and cheese. There are about 60 families that participate in the community. The awesome thing is that people can visit the community and stay there to do a volunteer opportunity!
Yunguilla is located about an hour away from Quito.
Walking around the grounds of the community of Yunguilla was incredible. There were mountains all around us. There was also this mist of clouds that was constantly moving. Once the community partnered with the foundation and started to focus on tourism, all of the folks in this area stayed in the area rather than leaving. The area is so vibrant now compared to twenty years ago when there was very little hope in this area. Now, there are so many work opportunities and there are so many ways to make money.
One project the community is working on is perfecting orchids that can be exported to the United States. Orchids usually need to live on another plant, so some of the community members are testing ways to perfect the way to get orchids to grow independently.
While we were on our walk, two little girls from the community started following us. They were such hams in front of the camera. Most of the children in Ecuador are a little shy, but these girls were not shy at all. One of the teachers gave the girls her camera to play with. The girls had a blast taking pictures.
We made it to the jam kitchen after our walk. The woman was cooking up a fruit I had never heard of-chihualcan. She cooked it up, liquified it, and then cooked it up again after adding sugar to it. Eventually, it turns into jam.
On the right, you can see the fruit she starts with. On the left, the fruit is in a huge pot cooking for about an hour. I takes about one day to make 18 jars of jam!
After the jam factory, we went to the cheese factory. All of the community members get milk from their cows and then sell the milk to the factory. They are paid for every liter of milk they bring to the factory.
Here is the huge vat of cheese.
The woman has to scoop out all of the whey. She said that they feed the whey to the pigs.
This is the final product that is for sale in the store.
This is a bedroom in the tourist house. A tourist house is a house where people in the community build a house where they open part of their house for visitors. If someone wants to volunteer, they can stay in a room like this! Staying in this room is only $15 a night and it includes three meals a day. If people want to stay and not volunteer, then it costs $30 a night including three meals a day. The view from the house is so incredible.
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