Going The Distance

The hacienda is genuinely one of the most magical places I think I have ever been. It’s at the base of the Cotopaxi volcano, the land is green and lush, the temperature is sunny but breezy. The house is big but unpretencious. The outer windows are large, so the main rooms are bathed in the mountain light. The surrounding, tended garden is alive with colour and order. Bougainvillea cascades from the bowers surrounding the living room, a fish pond has fat little goldfish in it, and the wind moves the tall daisies around. Quite lovely.

Alicia is half-Swiss, half-Ecuadorean. She’s gorgeous, dark hair and eyes and a wonderful elegance. Valentin is her Aryan: blue eyes, lighter skin. He was raised in the Swiss alps as a farmer, and left around the age of 20 because he became disenchanted by the ills of 20th century society. He came over to South America, and started working on the haciendas out here, saying that the uncomplicated and uncluttered way of living suited him much better. The two of them had known each other in Switzerland, when both were with other people, but it was only when Alice asked Valentin to come and help with her ill father’s hacienda in Colombia that the two became really good friends. Alice later split from her husband, and the two of them ended up together.

Alice is wonderfully matter-of-fact- “this one I know is for life”. They have been together for more than 20 years, but Valentin is staunchly against marriage, so they remain unmarried. In fact, Valentin is staunchly against a lot of things. Humanity in general, seems to be a recurring theme. Alice and he have got the farm running (cows, fields, roses) which they run entirely as a fair trade, organic venture (rose growing is huge business here in Ecuador and in Colombia. It’s easy to buy tens and tens of roses for little more than a couple of dollars. Ann says that the foundation sees a lot of cases where children of workers (and the workers themselves) have contracted cancer from the pesticides which are used in the cultivation, and the work and pay is nigh on exploitation). They say that it doesn’t make them any money, but it keeps tens of local people employed. Furthermore, Alice’s daughter set up a school on the farm for 120 children of the nearby peasant villages. Volunteers come from round the world to teach there, they are housed and fed. We meet a jovial Irishman at one point…

Valentin is really sickened by the excesses of mankind. He sees how man just takes takes takes and it makes him really sad and angry. Despite his lapses into the occasional polemic, he is great fun and very very good company. He can laugh at himself (and Alice is good at poking fun at him too) and it makes for a very interesting interview indeed. We keep having to pull him back from the Ills of the World and back to his love story with Alice.

They make a great couple. On this trip, we have met so many wonderful couples with different types of love. I always love it when we meet a couple who I think we are similar to. They are good friends, first and foremost. They laugh, they discuss, they enjoy each other’s company. But they are also very independent, and different in ways.

Twenty years ago, Alice decided to study art. She had never done so before, and had never had any inclination to do so. Then one day on the hacienda, she had the urge. So she started having a go at it. Then she used to go to a workshop at the university and just work happily in one corner. And slowly, slowly, she has become brilliant at it. The exhibition in Quito is the first of her work, and while we are with her, she receives a phonecall from a UNESCO representative, asking for her work to be exhibited in Paris. She is modest, and laughs when I try and make a big deal out of it. At the moment, she spends three days up in Quito a week, and says that that’s how their relationship works well: they each have their own interests, and are never jealous of the time the other one gives to those interests. Valentin runs the farm, and will disappear off with his bike and the dogs for hours, and Alice is happy to let him go.

We have a most wonderful interview and subsequent conversation with these guys, meandering through Valentin’s apocalyptic and Malthusian forecasts and onwards. We eat beef from the farm, and are surrounded by vases of roses from the farm.  It’s really really sad to leave this magical place and these wonderful people. I really hope that Alice has the exhibition in Paris, it will be a great excuse to see them again.

We leave to drive to Cuenca, 3rd biggest city in Ecaudor and jewel of the inland south.

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