Today the gang, this time including Tete and Nico to the gaggle of girls, travled to Casa Blanca, about at 45 minute ride out from Lima. Casa Blanca is an organic farm that was started by Carmen and Ulises, the cutest old couple that you will ever meet. I fell in love with Ulises at the start when he started explaining his love for the earth, for his home and how even though they may not be millionaires by money, they are millionaires in their way and quality of life.
On their farm, Carmen y Ulises grow a variety of fruits and vegetables, my favorite being granadillas. Now the fruit here in Peru is BANGIN. Granadilla looks like an orange in size and color, but eating it is much, much different. You squeeze the fruit and it pops for it is hollow. Inside the fruit are wonderous, jelly seeds that you suck up. As Rosi said, it's like eating brains. If brains tasted like granadillas do, I may have to induldge in them more.
After a tour of their extensive garden, we were introuduced las cuyas, aka the guinea pigs. Although I have yet to try them, they are supposed to be a delicacy. I'll just take their word for it. From the guinea pigs, not only do they get meat, they also get power and fertilizer! Once a month they clean out the guinea pig houses from which they get about 3 tons of shit. I refer to it as shit for that's what Ulises kept saying. Hearing "guinea pig shit" over and over again from a sweet old man is one of the more funny experiences in my life. Anyways, apart from the manure that they get to make the fertilizer, they also dump the poo into a huge stomach-like compartment that bakes and gets eaten by microogranisms which release methane. This methane helps power many things around the farm, making it self-sustaining. Such a wonderful idea that I hope we can somehow one day incorporate into larger city areas that have no use for their poo but to dump it, contaminating everything in sight.
Anyways, after our lovely tour and poo talk, we dined on a homemade meal of fresh greens and fish, with lucuma ice cream for dessert. Again, lucuma is a Peruvian fruit which is AMAZING and should immediately be adpoted in the U.S. After our lunch, and after our goodbyes, we all fell asleep on the way to Lima with bellies full and smiles wide.
For dinner? I was SO lucky to meet one of my dad's friends, Ada, who is a born and raised Peruvian. From Cuzco, she now lives in Lima just blocks away from the hostel and was nice enough to take me out to dinner and dessert. You haven't lived until you go all out with Peruvian food. After Ada, the girls and I then watched Edible City: Grow the Revolution, which is about Urban Gardens in the U.S. A wonderful end to a wonderful day.
Besos!!!!
Ulises and all of his glory. Love him.
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