Work and hummingbirds

After two days of cold and rain it was wonderful to draw the curtains to sunlight!  A gorgeous, clear mountian day with the stunning views across the valley to the volcano Pasachoa.  What this meant, however, was that everything that had been on hold with the rain needed to be done, especially as there were no guests.

All the lawns needed mowing and then raking - no catcher on the ride-on.  All the saddles needed to be taken out into the sun and the sheepskin saddle savers dried, then the whole lot cleaned.  Plus many other little bits and pieces of work that always need doing on any farm anywhere in the world.

This is the guest wing of the hacienda, our room is the top left one.

Some of our other jobs are to figure out how to make the hacienda come up quicker in google searches, keep the facebook page up to date and possibly refresh the main website too.

However, the lovely weather made light of the work, helped views of the volcanos Pasachoa, Corazon, Atacazo and, in the photo below, Riminahui with glimpses of the mighty Cotopaxi's snow covered peak in the distance.  Cotopaxi is one of the highest active volcanos in the world at 5,897m.

The gardens here are quite extensive and filled with an interesting array of birds.  At lunchtime you can see hummingbirds feeding on the flowers just outside the kitchen window.  We don't know the names of any of the birds here, but the plan is for Ben to photograph as many of them as he can so we can put together a guide for guests.


Every tree here is full to bursting with bromeliads.  It is rather funny that in New Zealand you buy these at a garden center and here they fall out of the trees at you!  Actually they can be a little dangerous as they get rather big and sometimes take a whole branch with them.

Plus there are gorgeous delicate orchids and little butterflies.  It is so lovely and peaceful, especially compared with our earlier travels.

 Haha, my typing was just interrupted by hoof beats on the stone yard.  I looked up to spot a bunch of horses on the lawn.  Whoops, somehow they'd left the yards and needed to be returned.