Vrindavan

Vrindavan is another ecological farm that I have been volunteering on the last week. It’s located near Rio Negro, in the green highlands close to Banos at an altitude of 1300m. The farm is gorgeous with a big kitchen/common area, different cabins for the volunteers and a beautiful temple. We have a river that we can bath in and a waterfall for showering. The place is a paradise. When it`s sunny, the trees and plants are the juiciest green you can imagine and kolibri`s are looking for nectar in all the beautiful flowers. When it`s raining, its mystic with all the low clouds hanging low in the mountains and the moss that covers all the plants. When it`s dark you can see the most amazing sky full of stars and the milky way.

There are about 4 devotees living on the farm who are sharing their happiness and inspiration with all the volunteers. When I arrived, I was warmly welcomed by Dhruva, a crazy Columbian guy you have to love on first sight. He offered me a delicious passion fruit juice and since then is stuffing me with delicious vegetarian food. Even the dog is vegetarian and he is the prettiest dog with the shiniest fur that I have seen in Ecuador! I have been able to continue my yoga practice every morning in the yoga salon overlooking the green and juicy forest around us. After breakfast, I either help in the kitchen, clean the cabins or weed paths and plants. Lunch is late and therewith also the end of the work day, meaning we spend the afternoons in the waterfall or dozing around in the hammocks and watching las picaflors (hummingbirds). One evening, we went to a friend’s house in Banos, who is a famous and incredibly talented painter and where we had delicious vedic food. The painter lived in Germany for a while (as their guru is German) and I was flabbergasted when he spoke German to me. Different to the last farm, weekends do not exist here, so we also have been working on Saturdays and Sundays. However, because everything is on a volunteering basis and the people around are so ambitious and enjoy what they are doing, I have not minded at all working on weekends. I had a lot of inspiring conversations about spirituality, alternative medicine and healings and vegetarian diets and once more experienced extremely warm-hearted, thoughtful people that devote their lives to giving instead of taking.