Introduction to Finca Del Soul

Welcome to Finca Del Soul, a vegan food forest and reforestation project in the northern Ecuadorian Amazon.

“Finca” is Spanish for “Farm”, so Finca Del Soul means “Farm of the Soul”. The intention here is to create, reforest, and live in harmony with the land and all peaceful beings around us, with our energy coming from our hearts and souls and not for money.

You can visit our YouTube or Invidious channel to see some videos from around the finca, and the Playlists have some educational material related to this project.

Finca Del Soul is part of Badass Fruiterrarist Land and Amazon Restore, which are larger developing projects aimed at creating a collaborative of fruiterrarists reforesting the local area in order to create a model to restore as many regions of the Amazon as possible.

Most of the work here is planting and maintaining the fruit forest as well as some occasional building or construction:

1. Fruit Forestry: Planting, pruning, harvesting, weeding, composting, chopping grass with a machete, et cetera.

2. Handcrafting and Construction: Using bamboo or other natural materials from the land to make a variety of items for the house or garden (furniture, tools, housewares, fixtures, structures, et cetera).

You don’t need experience; you can learn when you are here.

We also welcome your ideas if you think of any projects you would like to do, as long as they help the food forest or living space. You can choose when and what kind of work you’d like to do, spend a few hours in the garden or helping with a project, and have the rest of your day free to explore the surrounding area, enjoy the nearby rivers and waterfalls, or do whatever you’d like.

We appreciate your help and the benefits your efforts will have on the environment, but we also want you to enjoy yourself and have a meaningful experience here.

There are some beautiful rivers and streams within walking distance that you can enjoy for swimming or cooling off, as well as a mirador (lookout) with great views of the Amazon rainforest, and we share this land with many birds, butterflies, and other interesting animals. Most of the time it’s quiet here with plenty of time to ourselves, and sometimes we get together to share food, explore nature, play games or music, etc.

Accommodation: The accommodations are very simple… The volunteer house has a kitchen, electricity, Wi-Fi, running water, composting toilets, a Ladies’ Loft, and a Bat Cave, and it is surrounded by several fruit trees and a small stream. The sleeping areas have sleeping pads, bedsheets, pillows, and bug nets, but the house doesn’t have many furnishings, no refrigerator, washing machine, microwave, TV, jacuzzi, etc. Unfortunately we don’t have proper accommodations for couples; the sleeping pads are singles and have separate bug nets (not adequate for two people to share).

Food: Volunteers supply most of their own food, but we share produce from the land as it’s available. Food is relatively inexpensive here (we usually spend $1-$2 per day each) and available at the markets in Loreto, a food truck that (usually) comes once a week, and from stores about 15 minutes away that sell some produce (usually potatoes, onions, garlic, and tomatoes) and peanut butter. Please don’t bring anything derived from animals or from violating the rights of animals. 🙂

Water: There are two wells on the land from which we pump our drinking water. With increasingly frequent and severe droughts in the Andes and Amazon region, it would be wise to conserve water, as there is a chance that the wells could go dry after many days without rain. In the event that the electricity stops working, which happens often in the drought (as all of it comes from hydroelectric dams), we cannot pump water from the well until the electricity comes back on, making water conservation all the more important.

Electricity/Internet: There is no cell phone signal at the land. The house has electricity and internet connected, but it sometimes gets turned off due to drought or otherwise stops working. You are welcome to use them as you wish, but we encourage people to connect more with nature. Sometimes people teach online at designated times if both the electricity and internet are working.

Bathrooms: There is a shared bathroom downstairs in the volunteer house where you can shower and such. We use composting toilets, basically buckets to collect our unused nutrients that we feed to the plants in the garden, or we use holes in the ground where fruit trees will be planted. We pee around the fruit trees (or in a bottle to empty around fruit trees later).

Projects: There are a variety of projects here, and we want you to be happy with how you help. You can choose what you are most interested in doing, or you are welcome to propose any projects that you would like to do. The priority is planting, managing the grass (weeding and chopping), and watering, which is physically challenging work. But it’s only for a few hours a day, and you can help during whatever times you would like.

Trash: We request that you not bring any non-compostable trash onto the land. (This includes tea bags and all single-use plastic packaging.) In this region, there are three methods of “proper” waste disposal: 1) burying the trash in a landfill that leaches toxic substances into the rainforest; 2) piling the trash near a river to get washed away after heavy rain and leach toxic substances into all downstream rivers and eventually the ocean; 3) burning the trash so that it pollutes the air and rains down tiny particles of toxic substances over a large area. The previous residents of this land left us a generous supply of all manner of trash, and we cannot accommodate any more. If you cannot avoid generating trash while you are here, we ask that you take all such material with you when you leave and return it to wherever you found it (or to the city of Loja, whichever is farther). This means that if you buy (e.g.) a plastic mesh bag of mandarins at the London airport on your way here, you should take the bag back to the seller at the London airport, not throw it in a dumpster in Loreto. We may be able to reuse certain metal or glass (NOT plastic) items, but ask us if we could use them before leaving them here. If not, and if you know for a fact that they are 100% recyclable, you can take them to the nearest recycling facility, which is in Loja.

Decadent Babylonian Filth: Please don’t use any cosmetics or (non-native) toxic products here. This means soap, toothpaste, shampoo, body wash, moisturiser, insect repellent, anti-itch cream, sunblock, perfume, makeup, nail polish, pharmaceuticals, et cetera, including products labelled “non-toxic” or “ecological”. Any toxic substances used here go into the soil and air, contaminate the plants and water, and poison the land and food that we’re growing. Toothpaste can be made from coconut oil, herbs, essential oils, baking soda, or other natural ingredients. There are many rangpur limes growing here that are excellent for everything from body wash to deodorant and even shampoo (they don’t dry your hair), and there are shampoo ginger plants, lemongrass, and other plants here for the other uses listed above.

Washing Machine: We don’t have one. You can wash your clothes in a bucket of water or in the nearby river (with limes, herbs, shampoo ginger, ash, or just water) and then dry them in the sun.

Dress Code: We recommend that you do NOT bring clean or expensive or “nice” clothes, but you can if you want. You can wear as much or as little clothing as you want. No shirt, no shoes, no problem. This dress code applies equally to everyone.

Cultural Exchange: You will be surrounded by local Ecuadorian “campesinos” (people living in the countryside), and there are many indigenous (Kichwa) people nearby and in the town of Loreto that you can interact with. You will learn about the culture and lifestyle of the local farmers as well as the culture of reforestation and food forest creation, nature-based living, natural building, and other creative activities. We can share what we know about the culture and lifestyle in Ecuador, help you with English or Spanish if you’re learning, and introduce you to locals in town and the surrounding area. We can also help you learn to play the guitar or percussion if you’re interested.

Other: This is a place where people can feel free to be who they want. Many kinds of people stay here from all over the world, and we accept people for who they are. Some have experience, and some don’t. Some are extroverts, and some are introverts. Some are neurotypical, and some are neurodivergent. Some are straight, and some are LGBTQ+. Some wear pants and long sleeves, and some wear few or no clothes. Some can pronounce the word celery, and some can’t. 🙂 We don’t discriminate or expect anyone to act in a certain way based on gender, size, number of teeth, et cetera. We just want people to express themselves and live however they wish as long as they don’t harm anyone else or their property.

We share the land with all kinds of beings from the jungle and farms around us. This includes many different animals, and most of them are beautiful and harmless. 🦋

Overall this is a place to experience nature, live as freely as we can, disconnect from Babylonnoun: the entire matrix of the financial, legal, industrial, military, media, medical, education, entertainment, transportation, technology, religious, and virtually every other man-made complex as much as possible, and do our part to help improve the ecosystem of the Amazon Rainforest while creating an environment more conducive to all peaceful sentient life.