Mihael Keehl

I feel great. This year, I have achieved my dream of moving into the jungle of Ecuador to live in a beautiful, small ecovillage. Currently I am working on constructing my cabin. Life is amazing. I am doing what I am excited about and I can not imagine doing something that would be more exciting than this.

I have lived in an Ashram for 5 years which was great but ultimately not my life purpose. I moved to Ecuador recently in now I am living in a beautiful ecovillage called Terra Frutis, located in the jungle. It is awesome.

Terra Frutis in Ecuador. I moved here in September and love it.

I live in a community in the jungle, help to plant a fruit forest to become self-sufficient and inspire other people to check out this healthy and sustainable way of live. I have written a post about this here:

There are a lot of insects here of course. But it is not as bad as I have imagined it before coming here. You get used to it quickly. Yes, spiders are common. Sometimes I see a brazilian wandering spider. They look quite majestic and have one of the most painful bites in the world. A lot of cockroaches. I only saw a snake once. People say that they encounter a snake maybe once in 3 months, if you are working on the land a lot. It is possible to encounter venemous snakes that can be dangerous. The most annoying insects are small biting flies. They are mostly active in the morning and I usually encounter them during work in the field. You can avoid them for the most part by wearing long sleeved shirts during this time. Bullet ants are not uncommon as well.

I want to share my experience of moving to the amazon jungle to live a simple, healthy life in the ecovillage called Terra Frutis, located in the beautiful rainforest of South Ecuador. Why did I come here? There where many reasons that motivated me to leave Germany to start a new life here. Here are some of the most important ones: I wanted to live a simple and healthy life in beautiful nature I was visiting this place a year ago and fell in love with the jungle I wanted to escape wage slavery in Germany I wanted to live in a place where I have access to psychedelic plants and to live in a culture, where doing psychedelic journeys is nothing unusual I wanted to live in a sustainable way Ways of living There are different possibilities of how you can live here. I am curently voluntering. Which means, that I work for 20 hours per week and therefore I get a cozy cabin to sleep in, unlimited bananas and a portion of all the other fruits that we harvest here. There is also the possibility to buy a piece of land here and live like a neighbour. The land is much cheaper then in most countries. I believe 5000$ for 1 hectar is realistic. You can also hire local workers to buid you a decent cabin for 3000 – 5000$. (If you want electricity in your cabin, then it will be more expensive). Cost of living 200$ per month is realistic. The only expenses that I have here are for buying food at the local market on Saturdays and the 25$ monthly utility fee. Most people here have some kind of online job like teaching english, swedish, python or mathematics. Work Monday through Friday we meet at 7am at the Community Center and usually go to a field where we have planted a lot of fruit trees. The area here is very big and there are hundreds of fruittrees. The most common task it to take a machete and clear the area around a fruittree so that it can grow better. It is not necessary to go to the gym when you are doing this kind of work. It is a good workout and a great way to start the day. Other tasks include harvesting, mapping the area and the trees and working in the plant nursery (watering and planting seeds). Besides that there are is other kinds of work that you can do if you are not working on the land: cleaning the kitchen area, taking care of compost buckets, preparing cugarcane juice (very delicious), drying bananas, preparing sacha inchi nuts, construction work, creating social media content and others. We work for 4 hours, until 11am and then the rest of the day is free. You have a lot of free time when living here. I usually like to work more because of that, doing things like creating and uploading videos for Instagram, where I document the daily life here. People I really enjoy this simple way of life. There are around 9 long term residents here, several people that live nearby as neighbours and a few volunteers who come and go every now and then. The people are really chill here, they come from different countries like England, Sweden and USA and are mostly in their 30s. My impressions I can not possibly describe with words how beautiful the nature, the sounds and insects and how delicious some of the tropical fruits here are. Sometimes we harvest a fruit that I have never seen and tasted before and it just blows me away. It is like a new world of tastes that I can explore here. I love the sounds of the jungle as well. When I lived in Germany, I had a problem with tinitus, but here I do not have it at all, because the jungle sounds are always present. I feel healthier, stronger and happier since moving here. Some important information about the Ecoviallge (from their website): ( Mission Our mission is to be a vegan intentional community, taking inspiration from agroforestry, permaculture and syntropic agriculture to produce abundant and diverse food for a healthy, high raw vegan diet, in an environment where animals and humans thrive together. We hope to be an inspiration and to share our knowledge and methods. We practise sustainability, non-violent communication and consensus based decision-making, and seek self reliance. Our land The Terra Frutis project is located in south-eastern Ecuador, 18 km from Gualaquiza, on 136 hectares (330+ acres) of land which slopes upward towards a mountainous western border, with the eastern border being the Zamora river and then two smaller streams along the north and south as general locations for the other respective borders. The elevation is 720 meters at the river. The majority of the land is between 730-900 meters, and the top of the mountain is about 1200 meters. Most of the food forest project is located on land used until some years ago as a cow pasture (in other words: grass). Right now there are about 40 hectares of open pasture land that we are systematically clearing and re-planting with food forest pioneers. This land can/will be re-forested with trees, shrubs, vines, and herbs that provide food in a sustainable way, using agroforestry practices that work with and encourage local wildlife species. There are also bamboo forest sections, which can provide supplemental material for numerous residences and utility buildings. Access The land is reachable by pick-up truck via a gravel road. To get to/from the town of Gualaquiza involves a 40 minute taxi ride, or a 40 minute walk to a nearby village and then a 20 minute bus ride. Accommodation and Facilities We usually have plentiful rooms and/or private structures available for you to sleep in. You are also welcome to set up a tent, hammock, or other temporary accommodation. We charge 25$ per month for utilities (electricity, internet, kitchen...). We have: hot showers, hot water, a washing machine, a clothes dryer, blenders, dehydrators, a juicer, a cooking stove, a freezer, a fridge, internet, a hot tub. We also have a community center building for recreational activities or just hanging out. Food from the land We usually have more than enough bananas (several cultivars) all year round. Often we have papaya, plantains, jackfruit, canistel, rough lemons, naranjilla, hot peppers, and noni. Seasonally you may enjoy biriba/rollinia, peach-palm, abiu, guava, iñaco, peanut butter fruit, mandarins, starfruit, marang, ice cream bean, apai, and cacao. Sometimes soursop, pineapple, limes, miracle berry, cucumber, cherry tomato, squash, jaboticaba, breadfruit, and matoa. We are constantly planting and have planted hundreds of fruit-bearing plants throughout the property including: durian, mangosteen, mamey sapote, canistel, breadfruit, white sapote, custard apple, blackberry jam fruit, matoa, tangelo, pomelo, avocado and more. Beside fruits, we have a fairly good amount of katuk and turmeric, sugarcane, a little bit of taro and some cassava. Sometimes: tropical lettuce, sweet potato, ginger, corn, and nuts. It is currently not possible to get a healthy diet 100% off the land. So you’ll need to buy food. We either order food together to be delivered, or take a trip into town on market day. Climate Temperature is fairly steady throughout the year. The warmest month of the year is November with an average temperature of 23.8°C (73.84°F). The coolest month is July, when the average temperature is 22.1°C (71.78°F). Overnight lows tend to range from 16°C to 20°C. We have rarely seen as low as 13°C. )

The long term people here say that the best time to visit is January to March because this is the season when we have the most amount of delicious fruits.

I have not experienced this being a problem here. It seems to me that the people here are doing a good job.

I don't think anyone here hates Elon. I sense a craving for animal protein sometimes. This is one of the reasons why I have started to build my own shelter just outside of the Terra Frutis property. There, I can eat whatever I want. Interestingly, I have had the idea of buying land here but it does not make much sense to me anymore. Why would I spend a lot of time and energy to buy land if I can instead just go find a nice place in the wild jungle and start building? No one cares. And when I eventualy start living and sleeping there, I will still be very close to the community center (5-7 minute walk away). Here is a picture of the initial structure that I am building. It is not ready yet and I am experimenting a lot. I have no prior experience with building shelters. It is so much fun to build this. It feels like the jungle is a gigantic, beautiful, living playground.

@SimpleGuy How would you want to live if you get rich? If I was rich, I would probably still live here. I would just travel more often.

I have discovered a few waterfalls not too far away from here.

I dont think such a place exists, where everyone is at a similar frequency and growing at the same rate except for a monestary maybe. I have found a good balance here. I can go into the jungle and work on my own projects (right now I am building a small shelter outide the community property). If I want to be around other people, then I can just go to the community center.

Of course you can join! Just go to the website and fill out the application/questionnaire. https://www.terrafrutis.com/member-call-out/ Yes, we have internet here. Starlink.

Seems like the Ayahuasca vine is also growing around here

I recently found out that there is morning glory growing here

I love sugarcane too. We are making sugarcane juice almost everyday . There are at least a dozen mango trees around here. They do grow here, but not as good as other trees like jackfruit, marang or durian. That was a big moth on the picture, I like them. I saw a huge grasshopper the other day too, he was eating a hole into a towel xD.

@Princess Arabia here are some more pictures

I am glad you liked it! Being a part of a community is great, it is a natural need of social animals. Before coming here I have lived in an Ashram where there was a very big community with almost 200 people. That was too much for me. I prefer to live in a smaller one like here.

@Princess Arabia thank you for your beautiful comment A few bad things that come to my mind is for example, people told me that in the past 8 years, there have been 3 instances where someone got bitten by a snake. Some of the snakes here are venemous. In each of those insidents, the person went to the hospital in the nearby town, was treated (for free by the way) and got better. So it is kind of necessary for your own health to be extra mindful here. Another bad thing is, that there is a risk of getting parasites. As far as I know, the biggest risk of getting them comes from drinking unfiltered water. But we have a good water filter of course. If you want to see pictures and videos of this place, the fruits and insects, the best place is to look at the Instagram Account of Terra Frutis, Currently, I am managing that account and uploading pictures and videos.

@Jannes around 2,5 months

@Vibes cool, come visit if it resonates with you The people who have been living here for a long time say that the more psychedelic the catterpillars look, tho more it will hurt if you touch them xD. But most of them dont seem to be dangerous. I have touched a few, and it was usually a weak pain for a short time, nothing serious.

@ExploringReality I never heard of her but it sounds like she was a fascinating human

@Schizophonia no, at least not yet

Since wer are on the subject. New UFO footage was released by the US Customs and Border Protection recently.

This guy has over 200 UFO videos that he has been uploading for years. It seems like he has found a predictable way to catch small and very fast UFOs that he calls "dragons". He noticed that a lot of the time, when there is an aircraft in the sky (plane, jet, hellicopter ...) there is a high likelyhood, that one or a few small UFOs will fly by this aircraft. He believes that these UFOs are "tagging" these aircrafts. Some people may think that these are drones, but I think that can not be the case, because this guy has several videos, where these UFOs are flying from or into the water at very high speed and without creating a splash. It is also possible to catch these small UFOs by watching random videos of aircrafts in slow motion. Here is an example (watch in slow motion from 3:27): I am amazed by the fact that these little UFOs seem to be all over the place and almost no one notices them because they are very fast and small. I though it is worth it to share his channel so that more people find out about it. Eventually, his channel will be big enough so that people like Jeremy Corbell (famous UFO guy) will notice him and start investigating. After that, the military (who seems to know about these small UFOs) will have no other choice but to release the information that they have about those crafts. (There are a lot of videos where hellicopters are flying in strange patterns, seemingly trying to film these UFOs, while getting "tagged" by them). What do you think?