Villa de Leyva - Days 27-37
Before we set out on this journey, we had made the decision to do some volunteering along the way. Not only would it feel good to be a bit altruistic during this somewhat selfish year, but also would be nice to stay settled in one place for a few weeks. Plus, most of these places provide room and board in exchange for volunteer services so it would be money-neutral. Starting back in the spring, prior to us leaving, we searched through the lists of hosts on WorkAway.com to find something that caught our interest. Though open to any type of work, we knew we wanted to work outside, be in the countryside somewhere, and have a genuine cultural experience. A few caught our attention so we messaged them in April about potential dates for the summer. Then came May and we were still awaiting responses so we emailed a few others. Then came June: zilch. Hmmm. Maybe it was our lack of knowledge of trade skills? Or lack of experience? Or poor internet connection? Gringo status? Mostly likely a combination of all. So one day, we found an internet-reliable coffee shop and emailed a TON. Finally started getting a few responses! Now we had the opportunity to choose between a wide variety of experiences, which made the decision quite difficult (Mikki and Sam can relate). In the end, we ending up choosing one that traded some of the true cultural experience we wanted for something a bit more comfortable. I still am unsure whether we made the right decision but nonetheless, we finally had a commitment so we made our way to a small colonial town in the hills just north of Bogota – Villa de Leyva.
We make it to Villa De Leyva (after successfully navigating a bus switch at the chaotic Tunja bus station) and take a quick stroll (and lunch at another asadero, yipee) before heading a few kilometers outside of town to our WorkAway site. The town is beautiful,
quaint, and filled with colonial-style buildings. We would learn that this is the town where all of the rich folks from Bogota go to vacation (and the ritsy countryside villas definitely reflect that). Eventually, a taxi drops us off outside of the driveway gate at our villa, honks once to let the host know we are here, and drives off. Stranded with our bags, we anxiously await the gate to open, not knowing what to expect on the other side. A woman (our host, Jeannie) meanders over to open up the gates and a smile spreads over our faces as we finally get a view of our home for the next two weeks. It is a very nice house with attached “casita” on a large plot of landscaped lawn. The view of the surrounding
valley is incredible. The inside of the house is very clean and nicely decorated, with a large modern kitchen. Backyard has a pool and hot tub. With three playful dogs to top it all off. This was absolute heaven in our minds, especially having come from the coast where our accommodations largely included 4 sq ft of bug infested open-air living space and no amenities other than sometimes including a towel. This was the modern, comfortable, western-style living space we were craving. On the flip side, we would get no genuine cultural experience here. Even the host, Jeannie, is an ex-pat. She worked for USAID her whole career and lived in a wild variety of places (Sudan, multiple places in Africa, Ecuador) before “retiring” in Villa de Leyva and opening up a boutique hotel. Which is why we were there. After giving us a tour and getting us a cup coffee, we sit down and discuss her plans for us for the next few weeks. She was basically set to open up the hotel in another month so just needed help on some of the finishing touches and various odds-and-ends. Sounds great to us - should be easy and give us some good practice for our future home!
Our days volunteering pretty much went like this: Woke up around 7 to make some breakfast (usually toast and fruit, sometimes eggs, always coffee) and started “work” around 8. Our projects were turning old stumps into legs for a few coffee tables (sawing, sanding, insectisiding, staining, lacquering), building a staircase, painting tables and walls, helping with gardening, and cooking. Lots of cooking. One thing Jeannie mentioned on our first day is that she really does not like to cook. She even has a housekeeper Milta who comes to cook lunch for her and the volunteers (picture a nicer version of Lucille from Arrested Development yelling for Lupe and it was pretty darn close). But on weekends and holidays, we had no Milta so it was up to us or the other set of volunteers to do the cooking for the group. And dinner was always up to us. The deal was that Jeannie provided the food (but only stocked with good food half the time) in exchange for our cooking. A decent deal but got old quite fast and we ran out of things to make with bread and cheese. Anyway, after lunch we’d finish up whatever project we were on and wrap up the “working day”. Evenings were spent playing cribbage, watching movies, chatting with the group, playing with the doggos (Lola, the little yipper, and Mojo and Jojo, brothers and crazy), walking around the dirt roads, and as mentioned, cooking. Early bedtime then started the whole thing over the next day.
There were a few noteworthy things that happened while we were volunteering:
Meeting the other volunteers – Wiki and Ben. They were a young couple from Germany (this Ben was even taller than my Ben so he was dubbed “Big Ben” and mine was dubbed “Little Ben”, likely the first time he’s ever been called that haha) who were doing WorkAways and WOOFs throughout Ecuador and Colombia this summer. Great couple to get to know and enjoyed working with them. Ben was a landscape architect back home so they spent the whole time (probably a total of 6-7 weeks by the time they were done?) building a large pond and waterfall in the lawn, with which we helped a bit. At night, they had plenty of stories, both good and bad, of their volunteer and other travel experiences to exchange with us. Plus, Wiki makes some mean pierogies and potato latkes.
Bens ouchy. Day 1, hour 3 of volunteering: Ben swiftly strides out of the kitchen door and takes a sharp corner around the bar area. This bar area features a swing up counter window that opens up to approx 5 ft 11 inches. He takes the corner of the window right between the eyes and ends up on the ground, bleeding. Thankfully Big Ben runs to his aide with a towel and ice. Its a pretty deep cut, but stops bleeding eventually. No concussion noted. He still has the scar.
Pool and hot tub time. Villa de Leyva has odd weather in that it was always hot and sunny when we were working during the morning. But as soon as we were done around 2pm, it would get chilly and start to rain. This happened most of the days we were there. But there were a few nice afternoons where we took advantage of the lovely pool area. And since she has a hot tub, you might think that this chilly weather would be perfect, right? Well it turns out that it had a major leak. So we only got to use it once. But that one time felt real nice.
Great sunsets. One in particular. The amount and variety of cloud formations knocked my socks off. Everyone was out taking pics, enjoying a beer, and watching the dogs scale a 6 ft fence.
Saturday morning farmers market. Typical farmers market – crowded, noisy - but full of all sorts of new fruits for us to try! Uchuvas are a new favorite.
Stealing. Jeannie decorated some of her place with colorful rocks from a nearby river. She needed some more so asked if the strapping young boys and accompanying lassies could help pick some out and carry back up the hill to her car. Turns out, its illegal to steal rocks from the river. Ben was not pleased with this. Whoops.
Clothes ruined. One of my socks fell victim to stain and another sock, my capris, and my long sleeve each took a nice splatter of paint. Jojo found one of Ben’s socks mighty tasty.
During our time there, we did get two off days in which we could do whatever we wanted.
Freedom! The first day, we took a nice long stroll through the rolling hills to an area with a few waterfalls – Las Cascadas. The scenery was breathtaking. After the second waterfall and being unable to find the bridge to the rest of them, we turn back and try to prepare ourselves to walk the 5 miles back to the house. Lucky for us, a really nice Bogotan family (dad, mom, son, grandma) on their way into Villa De Leyva pulls over a few minutes into our walk and offers to give us a ride. This was one of my favorite experiences because they didn’t speak any English at all so I had to force myself to dig deep and carry on a 15 min conversation in Spanish. And if I may toot my own horn, I’d say I did a pretty good job! Topics of conversation included where we were from and where we were going, vacations, marriage, weather, food, Miami, schools, etc. Not too shabby. After they dropped off us hitchhikers, we exchanged numbers (for when we go back to Bogota) and she put Ben’s Colombian phone number in her phone as “Gringo Ben” haha. We had a great lunch at an Italian joint in town then made our way back to the villa. On our second off day, we decided to go leisurely explore the town of Villa de Leyva starting with some excellent coffee at Sybarrita. This place was specifically
recommended to us by Todd, who we met on our bus from Tunja. He is from Chicago but has lived in Villa de Leyva for the past 2 years. This place was an excellent recommendation. We ordered coffee to be made in two different ways – by siphon and Hermiston – and then got to watch the science experiment unfurl in front of us. Super neat and sooooo tasty. Played some cribbage and of course I lost. Again. I was getting sick of losing (see record) so I decided to introduce a new game – dominoes! They had neat a little wooden travel set at one of the shops in town. Ben’s never played so I have quite a good feeling about this. In the afternoon, Ben wanted to find a place to watch the Germany-Mexico Confederation’s cup match. The only place showing it? Yet another asadero. Not wanting meat and potatoes again, I order some sort of a soup. Guess what the soup was made up of? UGH. No more asaderos. I put my foot down. At least we washed that down with a tasty new caramely Colombian dessert we discovered – milhijo. Back to the villa to finish out our sentence for the next few days then head to Ecuador!
In the end, I thought volunteering here was a good experience because it gave us some real practice playing house and it was really nice to have some structure for a few weeks. We did end up mostly working outside and we were definitely in the countryside, but no cultural experience gained. Would I do this same one again? Probably not. But after hearing some horror stories about true cultural WorkAway experiences, I don’t know if I could have handled that either. Perhaps would have been better to use the two weeks and spend more time exploring Ecuador? The more you learn.
D27 cribbage score: Ben 52 (7 skunks) – Meg 39 (7 skunks)
D28 cribbage score: Ben 54 (7 skunks) – Meg 39 (7 skunks)
D29 cribbage score: Ben 55 (8 skunks) – Meg 40 (7 skunks)
D30 cribbage score: Ben 55 (8 skunks) – Meg 41 (8 skunks)
D31 cribbage score: Ben 58 (8 skunks) – Meg 44 (8 skunks)
D32 cribbage score: Ben 58 (8 skunks) – Meg 48 (8 skunks)
D33 cribbage score: Ben 62 (9 skunks) – Meg 51 (9 skunks)
D34 cribbage score: Ben 65 (9 skunks) – Meg 53 (9 skunks)
D35 cribbage score: Ben 65 (9 skunks) – Meg 53 (9 skunks)
D36 cribbage score: Ben 65 (9 skunks) – Meg 53 (9 skunks)
D37 cribbage score: Ben 65 (9 skunks) – Meg 53 (9 skunks)
Dominoes score: Ben 2 – Meg 0 (beginners luck)
A few of our projects:
