Two weeks of farm life

March 2023

Santa Teresa

A little picturesque town, with colourful buildings and essentially one of everything. As usual, we had a chore to complete first. We had ordered a rechargeable battery-powered fan to the town's post office from Mercado Livre. It was a long shot thinking that this would work but since Pedro, our home, doesn't have an address, it was our only option. To our astonishment, it did arrive on the same day as us to Santa Teresa and was delivered to the supermarket for some reason, where we picked it up! No more sweaty nights! We sampled a local coffee shop, strolled around town and went to the Museu Augusto Ruschi. It was less of a museum and more of an Atlantic forest reserve, full of birds, reptiles, and monkeys endemic to the region.

iArriving at the farm

We met Nina and Kilian in the bus station car park in Santa Teresa. Kilian had messaged to say Nina had decided to rescue a street dog that needed surgery, and they had picked it up from the vet. We followed them to their farm, which started as a tarmac road, and then, with an arm out of the window, Kilian signalled where the turn-off was onto an orange dust track. The track was fine at first but soon turned into a narrow forest path with big holes and deep ridges. The last part up the 'driveway' was steep and slippy, but Pedro made it to his new home for the next few weeks. We would definitely not be leaving on our days off and tempt fate by driving that road any more than once more to eventually leave. The road was very bumpy, and when we arrived, we discovered that the dog Nina had rescued had been violently sick and shat itself the whole way. The car absolutely stunk. The poor dog had been found on the road the day before, with its intestine hanging out of its arse.

The farm is on top of a hill right on the edge of the Augusto Ruschi Biological Reserve. They're building a house, but it's been slow progress and taken 2 years just to get the structure in place. In the meantime, they live in a small house that was already on the land, but is full of mould, and probably making them ill. They have a composting toilet and an outdoor and indoor shower, fed from water directly from the stream nearby. Kilian hiked to find the source of the stream, so knows they are first in line for the water, and it couldn't be fresher. They have also built a big swimming pool, but recent landslides filled it with mud that they had to excavate.

Kilian is a 6-ft Belgian Tarzan, and he took us for a hike to show us the land on what he called an "intermediate" trail. There wasn't much of a trail, and we had to pick our way through the dense forest, down streams and over fallen branches and boulders, whilst avoiding treading on, or grabbing onto, a snake. Kilian led us down to a pool in the stream where we stripped down to our pants and enjoyed a cool dip. They have a small coffee plantation and veg patch, but it's so much work for two people to keep on top of.

The dog was quite distressed and took a lot of Nina's time, who was constantly checking to see if it had prolapsed again. It had.

We sat around the fire drinking beers and getting bitten to death by black flies that don't get repelled by insect repellent. Em's ankles and legs were covered in bites and quickly became swollen and hot. Nina had made us a delicious vegan soup and garlic bread, and we sat with them and their cat, Claudio, for dinner, more beers, and laughs. Due to the altitude, it was the first time in a while that we weren't drenched in sweat and could sleep with the van door shut. It was a very peaceful and quiet night, but sadly, Em didn't get any sleep as the bites on her legs felt like they were on fire.

As we arrived on a Friday afternoon, we had the weekend to just relax, which felt odd as we were getting fed delicious meals for free and weren't doing any work yet, while Kilian was constantly doing jobs and two workmen were working on the house build.

On Sunday, while Nina and Kilian took the dog to the city to an NGO which had agreed to take him in, we helped ourselves to their scrap wood and power tools and made van bed extension 4.0. We also cleaned and organised inside the van and ticked off a few more jobs that had been on the list while distracting ourselves at some times with all the wildlife around. There was constant noise from different species of birds and loads of hummingbirds. Claudio, the cat, was very curious about our van, climbing on the roof and napping on the bed. Unfortunately, he'd let his cat instincts get the better of him and had gifted Nina with a mouthful of dead baby bird from the little light-fitting nest she'd been watching for a while.

We worked 8.30-11.30am then had time to relax, have lunch, do some yoga, have a nap, then work again 2.30-4.30pm. They don't work weekends. It's good they have this structure, or you'd always feel like you should be doing something, especially when the list of stuff to do is permanently growing.

Nina's cooking was amazing, making everything from scratch and as much as possible from their garden or foraged. We had soups, lentil dahl and homemade bread, enchiladas, aubergine burger wraps, tapioca pancakes, plantains, bean stews, pickles, fresh fruit juice, freshly roasted coffee, homemade passionfruit cake, and a recipe we'll definitely be taking back to the van for breakfast...mashed banana, apple and oats baked in a pan with peanut butter spread on top.

Killian also made sure we always had a cold beer or a freshly made lime or passion fruit caipirinha at the end of a long day. 

We showered in their bathroom inside the house and used our toilet in the van, then emptied the solids into the compost toilet at the top of the garden and the liquids into their toilet inside, which wasn't attached to a drain, just flowed down the hillside! 

Life on the farm

Day 1

The first day of organic farming was tough. We were up on a slope, 45 degrees in parts, hoeing overgrown jungle away from some tiny coffee plants you could barely see beneath all the wilderness. Em hoed herself in the ankle by accident as it got caught in some strong vines, then let go. Justin had several battles with giant ant colonies and a tarantula guarding a palm-sized sack of eggs. We made good progress and cleared several rows of coffee plants on the hill. Luckily, it wasn't too sunny, but we were still pouring with sweat from the manual labour and the humidity. 

Day 2

We had a rest from coffee tending to sort out the building site in front of the new house. Justin and Kilian got to work, moving heavy stuff and breaking up concrete with a sledge hammer. Em was tasked with sanding down scrap planks of wood to remove all the dead bark so they could be used to build walls and a roof for the compost toilet. PPE was non-existent, so she ended up in Justin's steamed up swimming goggles, some odd gloves with holes in them, and a saggy old covid mask to try and keep out the dust cloud. 

As it reached 11.30 am, Kilian announced it was time for a swim, so we climbed the hill to a natural pool and dived in for a quick cool off. After another delicious and very healthy lunch, it was time for a siesta. In the afternoon, Em shovelled mud and sand out of the pool, and Justin did more sledgehammering and shovelling of the old concrete floor in the building site and sanding and varnishing old boards. We had dinner and played cards on their terrace. Nina and Kilian have some hilarious stories that kept us very entertained.

Day 3

Another morning of coffee clearing and sledgehammering, then it was a quick shower and early lunch before a very bumpy drive into Santa Teresa in the back of their pickup truck. Kilian had an appointment to do some tests for his Brazilian driving licence and we needed a few bits (a sheet of wood for bed extension 5.0 - 4.0 was structurally sound but too heavy, some engine oil, silicone to reseal a leak in our skylight, and a couple of gallons of insect bite cream. We also stocked up on beer and crisps and stopped at a Bodega to share a few beers and fried polenta - a traditional bar snack in this region.

Thinking we'd be safe from the Borrachudo flies in the city, we wore shorts and got absolutely bitten to death. Em counted another 33 bites on her legs and so had another sleepless night from the swelling and intense itching. Another very bumpy ride back to the farm meant Em felt very sick when we got back and had to have a lie down. We made a fire, watched the stars, ate dinner, and shared some more stories. There was quite heavy rain overnight, and water was dripping in from the skylight so we were desperate to fix it the next free time we got. We did laundry a couple of days before, and it was then subject to an endless cycle of almost drying in the sun, then getting soaking wet from the rain, so we had nearly ran out of pants. 

Day 4

Em cleared around more than 65 coffee plants before attempting another clean of the pool, and Justin sanded and varnished more planks of wood. We got rained off in the afternoon, so we tried to fix our leak and our bed and had delicious homemade Moroccan pea soup and garlic flatbreads for dinner.

Day 5

We woke up in the clouds surrounded by mist and fine rain. It soon cleared, and we spent the morning smashing up more concrete, tearing down the makeshift roof area outside the house and planting pineapple trees. Justin had a quick chainsaw lesson, and after lunch, we made a little house for the firewood to keep it dry. We had homemade pizzas for tea.

Day 6 and 7 (the weekend)

It felt like we worked harder on our rest days than in the week as we wanted to take full advantage of having tools and space so didn't allow ourselves a siesta and ticked off a list of jobs around the van we had been saving. We made a new, lighter bed extension, fixed the leak in the sky light with silicone and heat-activated tape, fixed the side door, cleaned and organised the entire van, re-sealed around the sink, topped up our oil, coolant and washer fluid, cleaned out the portable toilet, emptied the grey water and refilled the fresh, cleaned and repainted a shelf, and washed our clothes and bedding by hand (a frog that had gotten inside the fan had broken their washing machine).

We did save some time to do yoga in our favourite spot on the farm, out on the decking in their not yet built new house, read, play with Claudio the cat, do some Spanish revision, bird watch, eat lots more yummy food, drink beer, and play cards. On Sunday afternoon, there was a huge thunderstorm, and lightning struck the tree right outside their little house as we stood at the back door! We hid from the rain in their kitchen, eating homemade cake, and used a projector to watch Puss in Boots on the kitchen wall. 

Day 8

It was a roasting hot day, and Em and Nina worked on pruning all the invasive grasses from the slope next to the pool and pruning the banana plants. They saw a juvenile Copperhead Pit Viper, but it was dead, so they must have trod on it by accident while they were working. They can have a deadly venomous bite, and it was a 40-minute drive to the nearest town, so it was lucky we didn't get bitten. Justin and Kilian smashed up more concrete and carried it down to the river to use as weights for the shitake mushrooms. We had tonnes of homegrown shitake mushrooms! They just plant the spores inside drilled holes in wood, throw them into the cold river, weigh them down, and 2 days later they are full of tasty mushrooms!

In the afternoon, we built some wooden walls around the compost toilet, using the recycled planks Justin had sanded and varnished. Justin's had terrible sinus pain the last few days, caused by all the excessive dust while he's been sanding without a proper mask.

Day 9

Another roasting day, we all got to work landscaping in front of the house, which involved tearing up turf mats from the top of the garden where they'd already rooted and putting them down on the levelled bit of land we'd cleared all the concrete from, then shovelling tonnes of chicken poo in between the mats as fertiliser. In the afternoon, we finished building the walls around the toilet and shovelled some grit that got delivered. After dinner, we had a fire.

Day 10

It was super hot again. Em and Nina painted the pool a sandy colour, and Justin and Kilian shovelled grit and sand to make a filtered wastewater system in which banana plants can grow. We got the afternoon off to go exploring as we were unlucky with the rain at the weekend and we were leaving the next day. That night there was another big storm and we sat on the decking watching it roll in for as long as could before we started to get wet.

Because of the rain the day before, the road we tried to leave on was impassible. We're talking sheet mud going uphill with deep trenches for our tyres to get stuck in. We'd gone about 3km before hitting this really bad bit, managed to escape and turn round then drove the same way we'd come in back to Santa Teresa, which was steeper uphill but less swampy. Now in Santa Teresa, and the adrenaline drained from our system after the treacherous drive, we indulged in strong coffee and lots of sugar (doughnuts, cookies, and scones) from a bakery while we reacclimatised to civilisation. 

We drove to Fundao and then to see apparently the biggest buddha statue in the western world. It was very peaceful there, and we had her all to ourselves. 

We had booked an Airbnb with a pool and a jacuzzi bath in Domingos Martins for a few nights to recover after the farm work but as we'd left a day early due to Justin's worsening sinusitis, we had a night to kill somewhere. After a brief look on iOverlander, we decided to head for the coast and found a lovely spot under the palm trees right on the sand where you could watch the sea turtles. This was Praia dos Coqueiros and it was idyllic, until we got murdered by giant mosquitos and Em woke up with horrendous shits.