Before Carnival Begins

This has been a very busy week, as I last posted we went to Guayaquil for our visa renewal on Monday.  Tuesday was my cooking class, maracuya ice cream, and Tres Leches cake. Wednesday was a wonderful tour of then AltaFloras rose production greenhouses ( More below). Thursday is my day to teach English, and Friday we had a new friend here "kicking tires" from England over for dinner.  This morning we headed in to town to get a package picked up at the post office (Club Correo) and had breakfast at California Kitchen and chatted with other new friend expats enjoying the morning.

But back to Roses.  They grow the most beautiful roses here.  If you have already checked some of the other blogs you will see the production through their eyes.  Wednesday morning we gathered at the Pizza Hut and boarded a tour bus for the trip to the farm.



Bus at Pizza Hut

 

Drove through the country side

Arrived at the entrance to the AltaFlor facility

The facility employs about 200 people and they are very proud of the certifications they have for compliance with the Flor Ecuador Social Environmental Certificate.  That means they do not employ children, they provide an hourly wage with overtime, employment here includes a provided lunch and a doctor that comes twice a week.  This is a huge facility with acres of green houses.  Roses are shipped from here all over the world.  USA and Russia being the largest customers.

Juan Pablo, on the left, giving the tour

Rows and rows of roses

Cutting the roses, note how tall they all are.  Long stems are highly valued, specially by the Russian customers

Freshly cut roses wrapped for transport to packing room

More

Beautiful rose ready for harvest

The bundled roses ride to the sorting room



They are graded by size of the bud and length of the stem

 

Then carefully packed



Wrapped




The blue are a special order going to California



Roses in the cooler being organized for shipment around the world



Boxing

 

Ready for a trip by truck to Quito to fly out



Or for transport to Cuenca the old fashioned way

 After the tour we loaded into the bus again and went to Hosteria Uzhupud for a great lunch and relaxing afternoon.



Back through the country

 

Entrance to Uzhupud




Part of the facility, origionally a hacienda

 

Dining terrace



And dine we did.  I had the trout, locally grown.

As usually happens when a bunch of expats get together lunch conversations centered on who found what where, how to get things done, where did you come from etc.  It was great to meet new people and make new friends.   

After lunch lounging by the pool, Ed and Cynthia even brought swimming suits but only sunned

 

More of the grounds, water proof ping pong tables

 

Beautiful humming bird in the garden

 

More of the gardens

 It was a lovely day with perfect weather.  Juan Pablo said that they plan to offer this tour now on a regular basis so I hope you get to enjoy it!

It is now raining, started about 3:40, I am wondering how it will effect the carnival events for the evening.  Carnival is like Mardi Gras.  Here it is a four day holiday.  Even the major grocery stores will be closed for two of the days and we have been told not to expect to have cabs running so we are stocked up and planning to stay home for the most part.  There are parades and parties all over town. There was a big parade this morning, guess they know it usually rains in the afternoon!  The celebrations here include the throwing of waterballons and the use of squirt guns....

Take care everyone and thanks for following us on our adventure.

Claudia and Jack