WORKAWAY
The first workaway gig led me to Palmarito, a little village near Barranquilla in the north of Colombia. I don’t quite remember how I came up with the idea of going here, maybe it was out of curiosity of what this corner had to offer and to discover an area that wasn’t really mentioned in the most tourist guides. To do that I had organised a working stint at a hostal who needed help around the house and let me stay in one of the rooms in exchange.
There was plenty of artisanal work to be done on the building, which was located on a little hill on top of the beach with a great view on the Caribbean Sea from its rooftop terrace. This would which would keep me busy during the day and provided me with somewhat of a countryside lifestyle.
The surrounding area paid into this feeling, offering little options for the spare time I would have. Even though there were plenty of tourist accommodations nearby, I couldn’t really discover real attractions of the region, and the ones that were advertised online or through my hosts wouldn’t really make you jump from excitement. Kite surfers found great conditions for practicing their sport and did so on many beaches, but if you wanted to go out a bit in the evening there was hardly anything really and I felt that I was up for a quiet 2 weeks.
This was a strong contrast to the option-laden city of Medellín before, but it was pretty good to start working on something that challenged me on a different level. Repairing the sliding door to my apartment, installing bars into its windows, painting doors and bars or pouring foundations for what will become a deck were the main tasks that filled the first half of the day and were far from relaxing due to the hot temperatures. At 9am the sun already was really strong and in the time between 1 and 3pm everybody tried to move as little as possible. Because if these conditions the area itself looked much more like regions I have seen in Africa than what I knew from Colombia so far.
As the workshop here wasn’t really well equipped, you often had to come up with new and improvised solutions, which I quite enjoyed – like the one time I made a new wooden handle for one of the pans of my new friend here, Cesar. Cesar was the chef and seemingly enjoyed having company around him: he cooked a couple of delicious meals for us and we had dinner together a few times.
The neighbours scoring 10/10 for location
My free time was relaxed and laid-back but far from boring, as I was again lucky with my company here. With Cesar I was either sitting together in the evenings after dinner, having a beer and listening to his kitchen stories or going to play a game of billiards at the one bar there was down on the main road with him. The fact that they play the game a bit different here unfortunately had nothing to do with the fact that I lost.
Later Andreas and Genevieve, a Swiss-South African couple from Cape Town arrived at the hostal to do a workaway at the same place. They were travelling to find a new place to live and turned out to be easy going and amazing company as well, so we spent most of the free time together going swimming at the nearby beach, discovering the surroundings with their car (having a car certainly helps when considering this region for a visit!) and enjoying a few brews at night listening music.
61 Likes, 1 Comments - @tim_o_d on Instagram: "Viajeros #yeanahcheers #Colombia"
We went to see a few places and one day made our way to check out on a waterfall not too far away, where you could jump off the top of it. As the whole region was really dry for about 11 months of the year, it turned out that there was no waterfall and hardly any water at all. This turned out to be an act of providence in the end, because we took off again and coincidentally found a lonely beach where we witnessed the sun dipping into the ocean in one of the most beautiful sunsets of my journey so far. A truly magical and intense moment, accompanied with the sound of the waves rolling onto the beach. To me this was probably the highlight of this whole station.
What made it even more special was the fact that the beach was far from perfect: everything, and I mean literally everything, was covered in flotsam. Tons of wooden pieces, mixed together with plastic garbage washed ashore by the ocean. This plastic waste could be found on every beach here, as well as on the sides of the roads – a very concerning thing to see! I’m even more thinking about organizing a beach cleanup wherever I get the chance in one of my next stops.
What makes this stop of my journey very special is the fact that the little and simple things became more important and made the difference. I worked on interesting things, got to see a bigger part of local life, enjoyed the company and friendship of amazing people I met coincidentally and got reminded of what a sunset, a few quiet beers in the evening and positive people around you can effect. I think it also got me one step further in letting go of things, which feels quite good!
The photography game, however, took a major setback as my camera went belly-up and halted my efforts in this game - you can see the last of its images here. This ruined 2-3 days for me, and even though I could sort something out I’ll be stuck without a camera for the next couple of weeks, unable to take proper pictures – mobile phone pictures are just not the same - this really sucks! If everything works out I’ll hopefully have a replacement at the end of February, but the money wasn’t actually provided in my budget and might cost me a month of traveling in the end.
Having reached the end of my stay here in Palmarito, I’m now looking forward to get to know Ecuador and another workaway in an area that will be nothing like beaches here! When you read this, I will already have reached Quito.
Cheers Cesar, Andreas and Genevieve for making this stop special & stay as you are!