Puerto Cayo (Parte Dos)

Our second week at the Puerto Cayo Workaway began the same way the previous week had ended: with replacing the hinges on the other front door. Luckily, we had learned a lot from the other door so we knew which tools and techniques we needed to do the job right, and we were done in a breeze. When we had finished, we were surprised with another door issue to take care of! This time, we had to replace the locking mechanism on the back door. This tasked involved taking off the door from it's frame, drilling out the locking hardware kit (the screws were, again, rusted and could not be removed), and then using a long piece if rebar to bash the lock kit all the way through the outer channel of the door until it fell out. From there, we had to reverse the process and bash the new hardware back into the same channel, and put it all together again from the outside. It was another long, convoluted process with a bunch of hiccups, but we finally succeeded (when we went to test the lock out, Tucker had stolen the keys and hid them on another part of the property, but at this point we had discovered all of his loot spots).

Additional work that week included removing cacti from the front drive up path and transporting them to the back beach area (these took a long time to dig up, and several hands on deck to lift onto a wheel barrow). We also cleaned the house again, did some in-home tasks like hanging hooks and re-plastering walls, and cleaned the sliding tracks and windows on the outside screen doors. That week also included a lot of weeding, and our first few truck loads of bricks for landscaping work. Anna wanted additional walking paths all throughout the garden areas to make weeding/watering/causal strolling easier. So we dug up ground and laid hundreds and hundreds of red bricks to create winding pathways throughout the grounds, and encircled various plants. Paulo the gardener also made his weekly Wednesday appearance. We had learned previously that there was a large Jehovah Witness presence in Ecuador, and Paulo was a disciple. At one point he asked if "we like music" (all in Espanol, of course). We responded that we do, in fact, like music and Paulo said that he knew a good music website, at jw.org....which was obviously a Jehovah Witness website. He showed us the music on there, and then proceeded to spend the rest of the day (still in Spanish) walking us through the book of Revelations and the importance of finding Jesus and saving our souls. It was an interesting experience to say the least....also, we let the others know about what had happened and a few weeks later, Lidia let us know that Paulo had asked them one day if they liked music, to which they responded "no, not really." We got a good kick out of it.

Meals that week included tons of fresh fruit and vegetables from the fruit stand/truck. We even tried the local peanut butter, which was the cleanest peanut butter you can imagine. While back home it usually includes added oils and sugars, this was simply grinded peanuts mixed with a little bit of water and served in a plastic bag. It was wonderful on toast and in oatmeal, although it did take a little getting used to the lack of sweetness. It was also Lidia's birthday that week, so we got a surprise Steve meal, which was always a big treat. He cooked pizza with a homemade plantain crust (note that the sauce, the sausage on top, and the side of breadsticks were all completely made from scratch too). For dessert, Ollie made a maracuya (passion fruit) cheesecake with a fig/walnut base, and Nicole made maracuya gin and tonics to celebrate. We played cards well into the evening (the game Leanna had previously taught us, that we had remembered vaguely before as something called Big Cow Little Cow).

As the week progressed, we finally were rid of the bananas and had a similar sized stash of plantains to work through. That meant trying fried plantains with nearly every meal, and after a few mishaps (you really don't need that much sugar and salt) we feel like we nearly perfected them (we also cut them up fresh into our oatmeal each morning). To drink that week, Nicole made several batches of fresh "lemonade" with the plentiful limes (they are extremely small, but you can get 20-30 for $1, and they work in these countries where you can't seem to find lemons anywhere). The lemonade often included maracuya from a nearby vine and ginger from the fruit truck. On Thursday, the fish bicycle showed up with some red corvina (the same fish they use in all of the awesome local ceviche) and we pan fried it with a butter and lemon (re: actually lime as mentioned above) sauce. While everything was delicious, local, and fresh, we weren't eating as healthy as our other Workaways, so we mixed in plenty of workouts on the beach.

In addition to the work and food (can you tell Kyle wrote the paragraphs above?), plenty of other things were happening that week. The fan in our room had stopped working, so we left the door to our room wide open to try to get any sort of breeze during the day (the nights were very hot). One day, a bird had gone into the room, and it took us the better part of 15 minutes to finally get it out. Later in the week, the shower head stopped working. While you may be thinking of a clogged or rusty shower head, it was actually the heating element that went out. While we have never seen these back home, we had run across a few on the trip: electrical instant water heaters integrated into the shower head. They actually work quite well, but it's an odd mixture of electricity and water. And, in fact, this one was on the fritz from the day we arrived. It had some loose wiring, and if you got too close to it, even without touching it, you would get a nice little buzz and sometimes even a shock. Kyle was actually too tall to stand directly beneath it, his head kept getting shocked and it took him awhile to figure out that it was the shower head, and not a sunburned scalp! Anyways, we replaced the heating element (Olle actually did this part, he must have drawn the shortest straw) and at least we had the heat back, although the electrical field and shock danger were still ever present.

At this point we had been planning a weekend of beach hopping down the coast. And it seemed to be good (or maybe bad) timing, because a bigger disaster struck on Thursday evening. As Kyle was laying in the room reading, and Nicole was showering, the lights started to flicker. Finally, they went out and a few seconds later we heard Anna yelling "oh shit." When we went outside (Nicole had to change really quick as she was still in the shower and initially ran out to check towel only), the little shelter containing the utility transformer feeding the property was on FIRE. We all rushed to get buckets of sand to throw on the danger area (despite what the shower situation was, we still knew better than to throw water anywhere near electricity) and quickly put the fire out. What was left was a melted disconnect box, particularly the one feeding the worker house (and the property water pump, but we were able to bypass this with some extension cords). We all sat outside discussing how lucky we were that the fire had not spread, the electricity had not arc'd, and that the power loss was limited, and Anna (who took this all surprisingly well, which goes to show you how awesome of a person she is), gave us all flashlights. We packed for our weekend getaway in the dark, and were off the next day for our coastal adventure.