10. On the way to collect fruit

In San Lorenzo I had the good fortune to live fascinating moments. Part of my job as a biologist is to record what people collect from their forests like edible ants and worms are collected, mushrooms in the rainy season, herbs, fruit and some animals such as lizards and squirrels that are prepared in mole sauce.

Part of the territory of this community is in high altitude pine and oak forest, which they call “cold land” another part is a dry rainforest, which is the “warm land”. They can use the resources from two different ecosystems; most of the edible and medicinal plants come from the warm low land. The firewood and timber for building their homes, and the mushrooms come from the high cold land. In May the women and the young girls leave at daybreak walk through the high forest to get to the low forest to collect fruit.