Nathan and I have just returned from spending three weeks on a farm near Santa Cruz, Bolivia. We did this as part of a program that connects people who want to work on organic farms with organic farmers around the world. In exchange for help on the farm we got to stay with a family and spend time getting to know them and their friends. We stayed at a small family farm called Rancho Montana near a village about 14 hours east of La Paz.
This time of year, the autumn, is the beginning of the dry season. During the summer there is a lot of rain and it is quite hot, usually in the 90's. Autumn and winter, however are still quite hot but the sun is a little less intense and there is much less rain. For this reason they grow their vegetables at Rancho Montana in the winter. They grow many of the same things we would at home, like tomatoes, beans, squash and lettuce, but with such a warm climate they can grow all kinds of other things that we cannot.
On the farm you can find oranges (naranjas), lemons (limones), guava, papayas, coconut (coco), passion fruit (maracuyá) and lots of other fruits growing. Everyday at lunch we would drink fresh juices made from pureed fruits from the farm--delicious! This is a papaya tree. The green fruits you see will turn yellowy orange and fall to the ground when they're ripe and ready to eat.
Maracuyá, or passion fruits, grow on vines like this and also turn yellow and fall to the ground when ripe. Sweet, juicy and wonderful! 
Another very sweet treat is sugar cane, or caña de azúcar. Sugar cane is widely grown in this area and this is the harvest season. After the sugar cane stalks are cut from the fields they are pressed for juice. Raw sugar is crystallized from this juice and then bleached and refined to make the table sugar we are familiar with. This process takes place in large factories now, but the old fashioned way to extract the juice from the caña, or sugar cane stalks, is with a press like this one. Caña is placed in the middle barrel and the long handle is turned, causing a press to squeeze juice from the caña. It's a lot like an apple cider press, actually. You can drink the fresh cane juice, or jugo de caña, and it is YUMMY! To me it tastes a little like brown sugar.
Other things you can find growing at Rancho Montana are cinnamon (which is actually the dried bark of a tree), cloves, paprika and other herbs, palm trees and yucca (a tuber kind of like a potato). Besides the plants there are some pretty interesting animals, too. Cows, pigs, chickens, geese, ducks and even a couple peacocks roam the farm. A few wild animals paid us visits, too. When digging the garden one day we found a rattlesnake (cascabel), three tarantulas and a baby red tailed boa constrictor! We also saw iguanas and large frogs, parrots, tucans and lots of other very colorful and interesting birds. This cascabel was spotted one evening in the garden.
Another day this parrot came to the house to say hello and get a snack! Can you imagine having a farm or a garden where you can find all these exotic fruits and spices and animals? It's pretty different from home! 
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