Coming home to Rumi Wilco

From environmental destruction to environmental preservation... what a contrasting experience, and such a salve for my soul after the Northern Oriente. I have spent the past two weeks working at Rumi Wilco, a nature reserve created by two Argentinian biologists to protect the sacred huilco tree in Vilcabamba, the south of Ecuador. Arriving here felt like coming home - the reserve is nestled between a range of mountains, dense and green and full of life, the mountain's energy seems to humm almost audibly and an amazing sense of "God" is felt in everything, such a quiet peace. Working with my hands, with the soil, has been such a powerful experience - there is such integrity in this humble work - we rise early every day, with real coffee, drank while watching the mountains, observing the changes in the weather and the air, walking through the reserve, the rich smell of the earth and the sound of the river, the meditative process of tree planting, the small seedlings pressed tight into the soil, or weeding, planting herbs, picking coffee, the beans bright red and sticky in this season... life at a different pace. I have learnt so much here, the realisation that another possibility for life exists - and another possiblity for environmentalism, that is active rather than intellectual or political. To purchase land, and protect, conserve - directly, humbly. It is a life with such integrity and perhaps this direct action is what is needed most now, on a grand scale, to preserve what is left of wilderness the world over. And this ecological philanthropy is being seen on an increasing scale in South America, the prime example being Doug Tompkin's amazing development of Parque Pumalin in Chile... but that comes later... for now, the southwards journey of the Andes continues and I head onwards to Peru...