Home is devided into primary and secondary rainforest. In the following we want to share details about our secondary forest.
The above picture shows the borderline between our and the neighboring land.
Since Home limits with the river, frequent floodings disturb the vegetation on the lower part of the land. However, from the main gully, which devides primary and secondary forest, to the beach there are different levels. Therefore, not the whole lower land is affected once the river level rises.
The vegetation in our secondary rainforest is extremely dense. It mainly consists of different types of nettles, some growing up to 3 meters high, a variety of heliconias and finally, before reaching the beach, of high and thick growing grass.
In the rainy season the rivers rise significantly. Sometimes the entire beach disappears. Then, the result is often the flood of the grassland. For this reason it is very important to leave the grass untouched. It is a natural defense against the erosion of the land.
However, the soil of the land is extremely nutritious. Thanks to the closeness to the Andean Mountains which are of vulcanic origin, and the water of the Jatunyacu River that derivates from the Volcano Cotopaxi, the lower land is perfect to grow food crops for subsistance agriculture. We have already found some wild growing bananas, which are proof of fertility on the one hand and on the other of the fact that this part of the land is secondary forest.
In contrast to primary forest, secondary forest consists of fast growing plants. By the way, bamboo grows mainly in secondary forest as well!
Our way of proceeding is finding the best place where to cut down weed and build our first bamboo cabin - close to the beach but out of range in case the river level rises.
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