A Roça [The Farm]

Hubby left early this morning to join his brothers at the family farm.  They are working together on planting coffee, and he won't be home until tomorrow evening [late].  The farm is remote.  There's no cell phone service and the last leg of the trip is a bumpy ten minutes on a dirt road, at times driving precariously along the edge of a steep drop-off.

The scenery is beautiful.  The surroundings are peaceful.

The food is fresh and delicious.  Every time we go, we return home with a giant box full of mangos, bananas, or whatever else they have to share.  They extract the juice from sugar cane and boil it down to make rapadura, a sweet treat that tastes like molasses.

A recent haul

Rapadura [photo stolen from my brother-in-law's Facebook]

It is nature up close and personal--I've seen lizards, colorful birds, and even one huge, hairy spider!  Hubby's mother has a gorgeous vegetable garden and beautiful hanging plants and orchids on the veranda that wraps around the main house.  It is the kind of place that forces you to relax; there's no way to constantly check your e-mail or scroll through your Facebook newsfeed.  It's a wonderful place to truly get away from it all.