From Salento we headed to Medellin for one last fiesta. This was my last stop with Eric, who would fly back to the coast with the rest of our new travel family that we met in Salento. We did an amazing paragliding trip over the city for some spectacular views, but other than that it was mostly relaxing and enjoying the Medellin nightlife.
After the group left I took a week to figure out my next steps. It had been an amazing two months of wandering Colombia and Ecuador but I was ready to find a place to settle down for a while, get back to Spanish, and see something other than a hostel dorm room. Initially I thought about staying in Medellin for a month or two and looked at a few apartments and volunteer opportunities, but ultimately I decided on something a little more rural. I discovered EcoHostel Medellin via Workaway, a website that connects farms/hostels/whoever wants help with prospective volunteers. After a 30 minute skype conversation with Paola, the owner, I committed to six weeks of Spanish classes, farm-work, and an hour of teaching English each day at a local school.
A slightly deceptive title, EcoHostel Medellin actually resides in Amaga, a small mining town about an hour south of the city. The hostel/farm itself is a good 20 minute walk up a dirt road from the town square which makes for some nice forced exercise. Also, there are two rules which would be a serious change: no meat and no alcohol.
I'm here for 6 weeks so I'll go into more detail about some of the activities in later posts, but here is how a normal day goes down. A typical day on the farm is pretty much the antithesis of life on the gringo trail. Breakfast is at 6:30am with the option for an earlier wake up for meditation or yoga.
After breakfast (and dishes, I have breakfast dish duty) I work in the garden for an hour while the rest of the volunteers have Spanish class. My class is at 9:00, I have a little more Spanish experience so I lucked into a private class. Another hour or so of garden work and then it's time to wash up for lunch. We get a little break before making the half hour walk to the high school for our hour of English class.
From there I usually walk all the way to town, stopping briefly at the farm to pick up my things and have a snack. The town actually has free high-speed wifi in the plaza so I head to my go-to cafe and grab either a coffee, a cookie, or both. I recently discovered these donuts filled with caramel which have quickly become a staple of the routine.
I hike back to the farm around 5:30 or so and do some sort of exercise routine before sunset. Occasionally one of the volunteers will lead yoga but most of the time I just do something on my own. The past couple months were less than kind to the body and I have to fit into my suit for a wedding in a few weeks.
Dinner is around 7:30. If it's my day to cook dinner I skip the exercise and get straight to work, otherwise I log some twilight hammock time.
After dinner we go over our English lesson plan for the next day and just chat for a little while. I'm almost always up in my room by 9:30 and passed out by 10:00.
This is the first time I've ever worked on a farm, taught English, or voluntarily given up the delicious sustenance of meat. But traveling is nothing if not discovery, learning, and growth; it should be an interesting 6 weeks.
After the group left I took a week to figure out my next steps. It had been an amazing two months of wandering Colombia and Ecuador but I was ready to find a place to settle down for a while, get back to Spanish, and see something other than a hostel dorm room. Initially I thought about staying in Medellin for a month or two and looked at a few apartments and volunteer opportunities, but ultimately I decided on something a little more rural. I discovered EcoHostel Medellin via Workaway, a website that connects farms/hostels/whoever wants help with prospective volunteers. After a 30 minute skype conversation with Paola, the owner, I committed to six weeks of Spanish classes, farm-work, and an hour of teaching English each day at a local school.
A slightly deceptive title, EcoHostel Medellin actually resides in Amaga, a small mining town about an hour south of the city. The hostel/farm itself is a good 20 minute walk up a dirt road from the town square which makes for some nice forced exercise. Also, there are two rules which would be a serious change: no meat and no alcohol.
I'm here for 6 weeks so I'll go into more detail about some of the activities in later posts, but here is how a normal day goes down. A typical day on the farm is pretty much the antithesis of life on the gringo trail. Breakfast is at 6:30am with the option for an earlier wake up for meditation or yoga.
After breakfast (and dishes, I have breakfast dish duty) I work in the garden for an hour while the rest of the volunteers have Spanish class. My class is at 9:00, I have a little more Spanish experience so I lucked into a private class. Another hour or so of garden work and then it's time to wash up for lunch. We get a little break before making the half hour walk to the high school for our hour of English class.
From there I usually walk all the way to town, stopping briefly at the farm to pick up my things and have a snack. The town actually has free high-speed wifi in the plaza so I head to my go-to cafe and grab either a coffee, a cookie, or both. I recently discovered these donuts filled with caramel which have quickly become a staple of the routine.
I hike back to the farm around 5:30 or so and do some sort of exercise routine before sunset. Occasionally one of the volunteers will lead yoga but most of the time I just do something on my own. The past couple months were less than kind to the body and I have to fit into my suit for a wedding in a few weeks.
Dinner is around 7:30. If it's my day to cook dinner I skip the exercise and get straight to work, otherwise I log some twilight hammock time.
After dinner we go over our English lesson plan for the next day and just chat for a little while. I'm almost always up in my room by 9:30 and passed out by 10:00.
This is the first time I've ever worked on a farm, taught English, or voluntarily given up the delicious sustenance of meat. But traveling is nothing if not discovery, learning, and growth; it should be an interesting 6 weeks.
No comments:
Post a Comment