Benvindo em Brasil e Peru: Let's go bananas...

Ecuador

Machala

From Trujillo I made a long trip to Tumbes and crossed the border with Ecuador arriving in Machala the world capital of the bananas. From the border of Ecuador until Machala, there is nothing to see but banana plantations.

In Machala I got lucky to be able to visit one of these plantations. At 7 AM the next day at a local radiostation a certain Señor Javier picks me up and we go and visit the Hacienda "La Florida" from the family of Fernando Ugarte H. His father is a former mayor of Machala and was also governor of the Province of El Oro. So a very rich and politicaly engaged family. This Hacienda is a plantation succesfully runned by the U.H. family for over 50 years.

The plantation 80 hectares of land produces mainly 'bananas', the once we are used to eat in Europe. They also produce 'platanos', a bigger type of backing banana, that tastes more as patato. Their plantation also has maniok, papaya, mango, cacao, oranges, avocados, coconuts etc.

This plantation worked before for Chiquita and other U.S.A. banana multinationals (Del Monte, Dole) who buy their bananas and chip them all over the world. They now sell their first quality bananas to different companies in Russia, Portugal, the Netherlands, Italy, Spain and more. Their second choise bananas go to Argentina and the bananas that aren't good for selling are processed into banana puree, for all sorts of products.

I had the opportunity to see the whole proces from the little plant, to the growing banana clusters, the harvest, selection and packing it up into famous banana boxes for transport to the harbor, and distribution to the rest of the world.

Pic's:

The banana plantation of the Ugarte H. family