Sometime last week David was asked by his friend if he would want to help out on his banana farm over the weekend. When I heard about this I decided I had to come too.
To begin:
Unfortunately you can't see at all in this picture, but our path across the railroad tracks was covered by huge webs made by gigantic banana spiders. It was slightly terrifying.
Just to give you an idea...this is a picture I just googled of a banana spider. These things were everywhere.
But on to more appealing things. We started off by planting a few new trees.
By the time I planted tree #2 I was already dripping in sweat. It wasn't pretty.
Getting started on the digging
Planting the big tree!
The next job was pretty much pruning the trees. Bananas continuously put up new little trees, and you only want to keep the biggest one, and then the next tallest shoot. You want all the energy going toward the big shoot that will produce the fruit. The next tallest one is on deck to be the next part of the tree to produce fruit.
We go to chop down excess shoots and leaves with machetes. Exciting stuff.
David decided to fan me like a princess with the leaf. It was fun until he hit me in the face.
Hey look! Bananas!
I got blisters on my hands from chopping with the machete so much. It made me feel tough.
Lunch break! I tried frog legs for the first time. Not bad, watch out for little bones.
After getting back to work after lunch, Nick chopped down a few bunches.
Me with Nick, the banana farmer himself!
Destruction!
A look back at the area we covered. There were 3 rows and we each took a row and covered about half the farm for the day.
You wouldn't believe how heavy this was!
Banana farming...great day!
