Santo Domingo Orchards & More (Weeks 2)

We'd had already spent a week at Santo Domingo Orchards and had one week to go. Time seems to always go by so fast when I'm WWOOFing. This second week was no exception.

After everyone returned from church we were taken to a near by market in Ma-Ao. Two rode up front and the other six of us were in the back. They even threw in a few lawn-chairs...you know...safety first.

At night, I helped by putting some of the pictures Meg and I had been taking over the days on a few phones, as well as some music. Picture taking was plentiful around the farm and with the locals. Getting people to pose for a picture was so easy! I'd just pull out the camera and they'd pose. Although, if you wanted to just take a picture of them working this would make it a challenge because they'd stop to pose for you.

Around as well as in the main house, we found our share of local animals and insect life:

I didn't get a picture of the local spiders, and that could have been because they were huge and I liked my distance :)

Meg mostly worked in her flower beds (see below) but on Monday the M stands for Banana? We helped with the harvest and it was pretty fun. There is some hard work put in to chopping down the banana trunks, cleaning the bananas, then putting all of the remains into composts, and finally making new compost piles each time. Instead of one giant compost, they put several smaller composts all over so it wouldn't take as much work to move and spread the compost all over.

Flowerbeds:

M for Banana Harvest:

Making a compost pile:

On some of the days off, Mr. P would take us around to see more of the island. We were able to meet his wife, whom was very nice and very friendly. Mr. P, as I've enjoyed calling him since blogging about him, took us to a near by restaurant for lunch and around the area for some local sight seeing.

The bamboo cannons are pretty neat but the story behind them more interesting and entertaining. I couldn't find a detailed story on it (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_Philippines_(1946%E2%80%931965) ) but the general story I was told is this: The Philippine army had the Spanish surrounded after many years of conflict but they were still out powered, so they decided to bluff. They built a ton of bamboo cannons and bamboo guns. They painted all of the fake arms black to look real. Only the soldiers that went in close had real weapons. The Spanish saw the over whelming number of cannons and arms. Not knowing so many men were actually unarmed, decided they didn't stand a chance and surrendered.

Some more photos of the area we had lunch in:

An other day we were taken around more of the island to see some of the mountain side. It was a lot cooler in the mountains, which was an enjoyed break from the heat. On the way there is a stretch of road that has some unique properties. We didn't take a video of it, but we should have. Basically you stop your car, and put it in neutral, and your vehicle will start moving UP hill! It has to do with magnetism, and in fact there are places like this all over the world. Here is a list of such sites: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_gravity_hills

We made some stops and had some fun looking around. Had lunch, saw a monkey :)

Picking up a few local fruits that I'd never had before made for a very tasty afternoon snack:

A few photos from around the farm:

My University, Go Huskies!

Making a wall!

We had one last Video-oke night a few days before we left and they went all out by making a large selection of food for us. We had a great night and learned to really enjoy Micheal Learns to Rock, which was a local favorite from Australia.

Eventually the day came that we found ourselves leaving yet another wonderful place. Our time at the orchard was a highlight in my travel experiences. I really wish I could have thanked both Mr. P and all of the wonderful people that worked for him more.

We were headed to Malapascua and looking forward to a few days of vacation.

Tip For The Day: Take photos, and then take some more. If you have too many “lame” ones you don't have to show them off, but if you never took a photo you're left with a fading memory that at best you can only try to convey the magic with words...and some times art, assuming you can remember the grandeur in detail.