Friday, September 13, 2013

Herbalists under the gun!

The next morning we flew from Quito to Santa Rosa de Machalia in the South of Ecuador. On our way out of the airport, our bus was stopped and we were all asked to line-up and open up our bags for inspection. These guys had never encountered a group of about 20 traveling herbalists before and began going through our bags, first with looks of confusion that soon gave way to smiles and apologies. We ALL had bags filled with various tinctures, dried herbs and funny looking little bottles of essential oils... what you'd expect to find in an herbalists travel bag. This encounter ended with the army guys laughing with us, helping us back on our bus and receiving a short lesson from Rocio on the uses of essential oils!