Hare Krishna Hare Krishna Krishna Krishna Hare Hare Hare Rama Hare Rama Rama Rama Hare Hare
This week I spent my time in a place quite tucked away from the usual backpacker path. I found out about Eco Truly Park whilst on a bus in Ecuador. I was chatting with a Columbian guy who told me about it, and I decided I would go. Let’s just say that my reasons for going may have included such things as ‘volunteering at a Hare Krishna permaculture community would make for a great story’, and ‘Hare Krishna seems strange, I want to see them up close’, or my personal favourite ‘there were Hare Krishnas in Hair, I want to be like that’. Whatever the reasons that brought me there, what I ended up, getting was so much more than I could have ever imagined.
My new home
This was a place where I learnt many things, both tangible and more importantly intangible. I learnt things like yoga, tai chi, mosaic making, cooking without sampling the food, that I can use a dry compost toilet, cold showers can be avoided by not showering, information about the Hare Krishnas, and the rituals of my first ever temazcal (sweat lodge).
Welcome to the temazcal
Oh, and I also learnt that I have no limit for the number of strawberries I can eat fresh picked from an organically grown strawberry field.
Fields of strawberries. Could a girl ask for more?
What I really got from Eco Truly was so much more important than just one religion or another. I discovered the importance of positivity, gratitude, love, and caring, and of their ability to enrich us, our lives, and the lives of all those we encounter. When you exude love and positivity, that is what you attract towards yourself. This is probably the most important lesson that I learnt, and what I will be trying to impart on a daily basis. I have figured out that one of the things I would like to get out of this trip is happiness in the present, and more importantly the clarity to see that happiness. To fully embrace and experience that present moment, instead of wondering what else could be occurring.
Other than these incredible realizations, Eco Truly was filled with so many wonderful people and opportunities.
Meet Tom. He’s died and come back to life twice at this point.
With our afternoons, we managed to explore a giant cave and hang out on the beach right on our front steps.
Everyone else made it to town and had ice cream that they described as ‘actually really good’, which is high praise for South American ice cream. I napped instead, and can now see in hindsight that this was a mistake. At the end of the day, I definitely think this was a week well spent. I believe (as keeps happening in this trip) that I was in the right place at the right time, with the right people coming into my life to alter it for the better.
