How I had a 6 week holiday in South America with free food and accommodation from Jan 2021
It was late December 2020, Berlin, Germany lockdown time. Fed up with being mostly inside my dark flat which has no balcony or outdoor area, and not able to visit a gym, sauna or swimming pool, I was dreaming of an escape. I got onto workaway.info where I’m a member and sent a few messages to hosts, one of which was Ben at El Rio Hostel on the Caribbean Coast of Colombia.
Ten days later I found myself on a beautiful secluded natural riverside retreat at El Rio. I have a free room and 3 meals per day, 2 days off per week and just 6 hours work on the 5 days I do work. I’m writing this as I lay on El Rio’s sandy river beach with clear waters and guests paddle boarding and tubing down the river. The job was advertised as a social media manager and El Rio’s main channel is instagram. I have some experience with that after running my own online art business for 8 years (I now run my own web design business called Wave Web Design from home in Berlin). Ben saw on my profile that I have been doing yoga for 20+ years and used to be a personal trainer, so he asked if I could also run the yoga classes 5 mornings per week and I jumped at the chance to be paid to exercise and get back into guiding people into improved fitness!
My last minute flight from Berlin to Santa Marta cost €715 and the return from Cartagena just €362 which makes €1077, plus a PCR test for €60 which is needed to fly with KLM and now to enter Colombia, although at the time I entered, the PCR test wasn’t a requirement of the Colombian immigration. So 1137 divided by the 6 weeks I’ll be here makes €190 Euros per week spread over the 6 weeks of my time here. Of course I’ll do some activities and buy some food and drinks and bus fares while I’m here too, but it’s still a pretty great way to escape the European winter, get a tan, get fit and make some new connections.
El Rio is run by Ben and Guy, 2 English guys who set up here in 2015. Ben is a DJ and focusses on music and marketing and Guy on the restaurant and the Foundation, which supports local businesses by buying local food wherever possible and encouraging local entrepreneurship, such as by selling natural insect repellant, local draft beer and snacks with no packaging from the bar. They also have a no plastic bottle policy, providing free drinking water to guests so they can fill up their own bottles (water takes up a good amount of your travel budget in Latin America).The Foundation has set up English classes, a local sports club, waste management, forest preservation, and a community school. For this reason, they appeal to the growing segment of travellers who want to travel as responsibly as possible.
In 2018 they won best hostel in Colombia and 2nd best in Latin America. Previously known as a party hostel, the lockdowns have changed things a bit. All the staff wear masks and the nights involve relaxing in the bar with an occasional DJ maybe once per week. The focus is now more on outdoor activities such as (on the property) paddle boarding, tubing down the river, volleyball, table tennis, pool, African dance, yoga, thai chi and laying around in hammocks. Closeby there is kayaking, surfing, a sunrise hike tour, Nature boat tour, Horseriding, Tayrona National Park, The Lost City Trek (Cuidad Perdida - a 3 or 4 day trek), many waterfalls and of course a lazy day at one of the nearby beaches, the closest being 8 minutes drive away.
I have to say, this is the nicest office I ever worked in. I don’t have to work in the office though, I can create social media from anywhere on the property on my laptop, and due to the patchy internet outside of the towns I often need to moto-taxi down to the local town to get a decent internet connection and do things like hashtag research and setting up podcast interviews for the owners.
All this is possible in my situation because I run my own business from home and can choose when to do projects. Since I only set up Wave Web Design in October 2020, I’m still building up my website and my clients, and December and January are typically slow in many industries, including Marketing.
If you’re someone who has a variety of useful skills such as experience working in reception, bar, kitchen, sports or marketing, this kind of lifestyle is available to you as long as you don’t have expensive rent to cover at home, children, pets or elderly parents to care for.
Check out workaway.info where it’s €39 per year to message as many hosts as you like in a huge variety of countries and work opportunities.
Follow El Rio on instagram @elriohostel and a local tour company @hotcaribesurf and my own instagram @outracheous
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