Farm Pics

The Most amazing bug ever: painted grasshopper The yurt we built waiting for canvas

earthbag house under construction

Donkey Luna

Outdoor hottub heated by the sun Shower

Kitchen

Pictures

Sunset at the farm

With our spanish teacher Marta

Disneyland type church in san miguel

Overlooking san miguel

Our homestay courtyard

At the lake Media Luna

Water falls at El Puente De Dios

Cascadas in Tamasopo

Kenny in Tamasopo

First Week on the Rancho

Hello all,
so we completed our first week at our first WWOOFing location. It is about 15 acres of land in the hills outside of San Miguel. After finishing class last friday we took a bus saturday morning to the big grocery store in town to meet the owner of the farm. Dorothy is a lady about 45 years old from san diego. We got into her 1971 VW bus and headed out of town to her farm. It was only about 12 km away but took about 40 minutes because the roads are pretty bad. We drove onto their property and were greeted by her husband Andy who is from england and their two dogs, puja and spangle. They also have two donkeys, whose job is to mow the wild grass around the property. There property is a beautiful desert area at about 2000m elevation (about 6700ft) We set up our tent and went straight to work.
So we thought this place was going to be an organic farm but it is really more of a natural construction site. They do have a pretty big organic garden and a green house but it is the dry season so they really only have carrots and a few types of lettuce left from the rainy season. Anyway, what they mainly specialize in is earthbag construction. They hold workshops for anybody who would like to learn how to build buildings out of earthbags. This basically consists of filling old livestock feed bags with a mixture of different types of dirt, then stacking them on top of each other and putting up a cob finish to cover and protect the bags. The structures are very sturdy and look almost like normal concrete walls when finished.
Everything on their property is spread out and made out of some sort of natural or recycled material. The kitchen is a circular earthbag thingy with a tin roof over it. It is outside and can be quite cold when cooking breakfast in the morning. The owners live in a tent made from yak's wool that they brought back from Tibet. There is an earthbag hottub which is heated by a solar water heater. Although we haven't been able to use it yet because it has been raining and freezing all week. Not enough sun to heat the water. They also have a greenhouse made of used old wood pallets. Very cool. Other things: sawdust composting toilet, a mongolian style yurt under construction, a very cool outdoor cobb shower, a dome type tent thingy for the dining room, a solar oven, a solar water bottle purifier, and another wood pallett tool shed.
Everything is outside and there is no electricity. They get water from a well and is cold if the sun hasn't been out. But if your lucky the sun will heat some of the water in the above ground hoses so your shower won't be freezing.
Typical day: We get up each morning at 7:30 or so make breakfast, and start work at nine. We work until noon, have lunch, do the dishes, and then continue work until about 3 or 4. Hang out reading or walking around until Andy makes some sort of delicious vegetarian dinner around 5;30 OR 6. Then we do the dishes from dinner and the sun goes down pretty soon afterword. It has been cold this week so we usually read a little in the dining dome with our headlamps and get in the tent around 8 or 9.
Tasks So far: we have built a yurt out of wood and then learned how to cob to make a little front stoop thing. The cob they use is 1 part black earth, 2 parts donkey poop, 3 parts sand, and 1 part concrete to bind everything together. We have fixed up their greenhouse with new plastic and reinforced the walls to make it more sturdy. We have done a lot of digging up or big huge rocks and filling in the holes with smaller rocks to make little drainage holes for rain water around the yurt. We do our laundry by hand, and also fill up 2 liter soda bottles with well water to be purified by the UV rays and heat of the sun (a very cool and really simple system to get clean drinking water). Next week we will start building this little cicular earthbag building and cobbing the walls of it. Should be a good time.
We are hoping for more sun this week as it has been pretty cold last week. Then next weekend we are going to travel to Queretaro, and Guanajuato before kenny heads to Michoacan and I head down to the beach in Oaxaca to meet Vicky. Pretty excited about it.
Hope all is well in the states. Take care.
love,
mike and kenny

San Miguel de Allende

Still in san miguel. We decided to do one extra week of class. Our teacher is great and we are learning slowly. Last night we went to free salsa lessons at a bar in town. It was great taking turns dancing with 50 year old women, because there were about 10 guys and 4 or 5 girls. I was pretty terrible but hopefully will get better. There is another class tonight we will probably go to. Also tonight we are teaching english to local 8-10 year old mexican kids at the public library. Should be a good time.

Our stay with our family here has been the best part of San Miguel. Their home is beautiful and the family is so kind and generous. Kenny and I share a room for $18 a day each. But we also get three meals a day of the most amazing food ever known to man. We leave each meal satisfied, full, and completely amazed at how lucky we are. I will post some pictures of our house later.

Last weekend we went with the family to their rancho. They own two. One with pigs, cows and bulls and the other is sort of a beginning of a small resort. We went to the resort one. It was outside of the city about 10 km and was very beautiful. They have 2 big swimming pools and 2 smaller kiddie pools that fill up with natural agua caliente. It comes right out of the ground and they pump it into the pools. Then they drain the water each week so that it is always fresh and clean. No chemicals used. The amazing part is that they grow vegetables down the hill from the pools so that the pool water is redirected to the crops when the pools are drained. Amazing! The main house, where the daughter and her husband just moved in, is beautiful as well. The ceilings are high and arched but are made of bricks. A very tricky thing to build they say. There is also a small courtyard where there is a gigantic palm tree growing. The leaves act as sort of a roof for the open aired courtyard. The whole place is just incredible. They also have 3 small apartments (one or two bedrooms with kitchen and bathroom) that they rent out to whoever for about 300 dollars a month. There is also a very small little church, alar type building which could be used for weddings or praying or quinseneros (15 year old girl huge birthday celebrations that are as big of a deal as weddings) or whatever else. There goal is to start organic farming there and have a little store where they can sell the produce. They also charge a small fee to use the pools. Which are always packed full of kids. They want kenny and I to tell them about our experiences on the organic farms we are going to. And possibly help them set up there land to grow organic stuff as well. Last weekend when we were there we ate lunch and then helped the son of the family scrub and clean one of the drained pools for about 4 hours. It was hard work but fun none the less. The whole family works very hard. Probably about 12 -15 hours a day.

Got to run.
Adios
Mike and Kenny

First Colorado Plates

Today we saw a Toureg with Colorado Plates, the first we have seen in Mexico, absolutely fantastic! I felt like I was in Colorado. Spanish school is going just great, Mike and I are in the same class and our maestra is a fox! We are thinking about doing one more week of class because of this reason before we start our farming extravaganza. I haven´t seen anyone I know in town except for Mike and a girl we met on the bus sometimes. Things are good, it is colder here right now in the mornings and night than Colorado it seems. It seems that global warming is actually cooling Mexico and since this is a new trend since El Niño eight years ago. For those of you who don´t know Spanish, that means the Niño. Also the sudden popularity of ethanol in the states has given to raise to the price of corn products including our stple, corn tortillas. The price now has risen to 14 pesos per kg in the most expensive areas of the country. People are angry and cold, but we are having a great time and recommend this part of the country to anyone who dares to brave paying $1.20 for two and a half pounds of tortillas. Mike has had some diarrhea and I´m waiting for mine to arrive any day now. Our mama, se llama Maria is a nice lady that prepares plenty of food for her hijos. I have been eating too much and not running enough because the air is a little contaminated and gives headaches. Much love from freezing morning and night time San Miguel de Allende, Mexico. Kenny met a nice girl on the bus, it was quite magical. Details for the wedding are on the way. To be continued... we might go to Cuba.

San Miguel de Allende y màs

sunrise in los lomas del real

Las Cascadas in Tamasopo

Hello people. Thanks for the e-mails and comments. I love to hear from you guys too. So we have had a few crazy days since last update. We are now in San Miguel de Allende in the state of Guanajuato for spanish class for one week.

After leaving Tampico we took a bus to Ciudad Valles where we took another bus to tamasopo. This is heading west away from the gulf coast. During this night bus ride we met a kid named Juan who was in Austin Texas for 3 years illegally before the immagration police caught him and took him back to mexico. He said it took him seven days of swimming and walking in the night to sneak accross the border. Crazy story.

Anyway we arrived in Tamasopo at night at found a decently priced hotel. In the morning we went to see las cascadas (waterfalls). This seems to be a semi small mexican tourist attraction. But we didn´t find the town in our Lonely Planet Mexico guide and we didn´t see any other gringos there. It was extremely beautiful. After we walked back to town and walked up a dirt road past sugar cane fields for about 5 or 6 km to another waterfall place called el puente de dios. It was even more beautiful with crystal clear water.

There we met a mexican family that lived in Chicago. We swam with them a bit and talked about our trip and then left for the walk back to town. We hitchiked back into town for lunch and that same family happened to drive by. They joined us for lunch and then offered to give us a ride to the next town called rio verde. So we piled in their car and drove about 1.5 hours to rio verde where they proceeded to invite us into their home for dinner. Then they drove us to a campsite outside of town called media luna. Here we set up our tent in the dark and met a group of 6 kids that were from san luis potosì they had hitchhiked all the way to tijuana (about a day and a half) and were on their way home.

The next morning we woke up to a beautiful landscape. Pine trees and a lake with little rivers running here and there surrounded us. The water here was also crystal clear and very warm. Probably about 75 or 80 degrees. We swam the whole day with the kids we had met. At night we decided to hitch hike with them back to san luis potosi. After walking for about 2 km we piled into the back of a truck. 8 of us in the back and a trailer with 3 horses behind us. The ride took a little over two hours and my butt hurt. It was freezing cold but still an adventure.

In san luis potosì we stayed at the house of one of the kids we met. The next day we toured the centro area of SLP. Very beautiful old churces and government buildings. Unfortunately we forgot our cameras so the images our for our memory only. This morning we woke up early and took a bus to san miguel de allende. We are staying in a beautiful house with a mexican family in this beautiful town. We start classes on monday for one week and then we are working on a farm here for two weeks.

It has been an amazing couple of days. Finding these little known places that aren´t even in the guide book has been great. People continue to be exceptionally nice and are alway willing to help. Be it a ride or for directions, whatever you need. Mexico and its people are amazing and everything is beautiful.

Time to go. Would love to hear updates from you guys too.

michael.l.dahl@gmail.com and kenneth.gillis@gmail.com

adios,

love

mike and kenny

En el autobus

El kiosko en el centro de Tampico

Pescar en la laguna

Hello everyone,

we have had an amazing time in the tampico/altamira/los lomas area. We spent the last few days staying at alex´s parents house in los lomas. The whole family was there for jennas wedding. lots of cousins, 8 brothers and sisters, and many more all in a little two bedroom house. Kenny and I set up my tent in the yard and slept there. The wedding was on saturday and was crazy. they had 600 beers and 12 bottles of tequila for everyone. Tons of soda (they drink soda like water here) and lots of food. A cows neck and leg to make barbacoa. We also had mole with pollo and asada (pork). Again all the food was amazing. We sent up a big canvas tent in the backyard for the ceremony and it was beautiful. I ended up being a witness and had to sign their wedding liscense. After the ceremony we ate and drank and talked. Then the dancing started. it was great. great music and lots of people. After that they did some mexican wedding traditions which was cool to see. I´ll try and describe one but it is hard.

So Alex and Jenna got up on chairs in the middle of the dance floor (which was the dirt under the tent) and held a scarf between them. Then kenny and i held on to alex and Vicky and Lori (Jenna´s friends) held on to jenna. Then all of the friends and family proceeded to form a train by connecting their arms and ran aroud us while music blasted: As the music got faster the people ran faster and started running into us. I´m guessing the point is to knock over the bride and groom because it started getting kind of rough. BUt it was fun. That is a pretty terrible description but I hope you get the idea.

At the wedding our friends Vicky, Lori, Patty (jenna´s mom) and mira (jenna´s niece) were the only other gringos. It was weird to speak more that one or two sentences in a row in english. So far they are the only other gringos we have seen since getting on the bus in colorado. No one speaks english so our spanish is slowly gettting better.

After the wedding we continued to stay at Alex´s house and celebrated new years there with the families. More drinking and eating. I don´t think i have ever eaten so much food in three days in my entire life. Yesterday we went fishing with some of the family in a beautiful laguna. They used a net, some fishing poles and coke bottles with a line and hook wrapped around it. PRetty crazy. We caught about 20 fish and 10 crabs in a couple of hours.

Then the entire family left and kenny and i spent one more night there and now we are back in altamira about to catch a bus. We are on our way to san miguel de allende for spanish class for a week. After that we have our first organic farm lined up to work on. On the way there we will stop in Tamasopo, Rio verde, and Queretaro. Should be a good time. I´m trying to figure out how to post pictures on here so you can see everything we have done. Hopefully it will work this time.

Take care

love

mike and kenny