Harvesting Simplicity: Volunteering at an Eco Lodge in Colombia

I find I’m often floating around these days. Gently moving week by week and barely planning beyond the next day. Many people ask me if the slow travel life gets confusing or exhausting without stability or a place to call home, and sometimes they’re right.

So periodically there is the calling to really stop, to settle, reconnect with myself and delve into new and deeper connections. This week I got to do just that volunteering at the Ritmo del Rio Eco-Lodge in the dense green hills of central Colombia. 

After a 15-hour week, I’m enjoying a slow weekend. Somewhere tucked away in the Antioquian hills, volunteers are sitting spread around the eco-lodge. Some practise their Spanish, while others catch up with work or stick gathered receipts from their travels in their worn-out scrapbooks. The setting is ‘muy tranquilo’ indeed, encapsulating what I adore most about the slow travel life; the space and time to simply be.

Simple living, like most people, fuels me and inspires me. It’s in the space of simplicity that my best ideas come and I feel myself. Evoking that our time is only ours to define.

Simple living ties in nicely with volunteering abroad because you can pause, balance your time and create connections while partaking in meaningful work. Thank god for Workaway, because each time I volunteer, I get to rediscover that we can be full selves in the space of simplicity.

A Note on Volunteering Abroad:

Workaway and Worldpackers are platforms I use to volunteer on projects across the world. Both allow volunteers and hosts across the world to connect and work together on diverse projects. In exchange for 15-25 hours a week, volunteers are provided a bed and often food by hosts. While hosts receive help with their projects and meet travellers from around the globe. For me, it’s become the best way to travel and get close to more of what brings me simple joy in life, nature, time and connection. 

Ritmo del Rio

Saying goodbye to friends in Medellin who I’d met in India three years ago, I hesitantly travelled via local buses through the Antioquian mountains. Jumping on tuk-tuks along winding steep, stony roads lined by El Cedro trees. Finding that I still had a walk to go, I crossed a narrow bridge over the Ritmo River with my 40l backpack upstairs surrounded by banana and aloe vera trees.

Sweating profusely by this point, I dropped my bag and thankfully arrived at the serene and tropical eco-lodge resort of Ritmo del Rio. Where I’d be volunteering for the next week (or more)…

Volunteering abroad is not just a tourist activity, this means something more to me, something deeper than just being an ‘overseas volunteer’. Volunteering shows me how it feels to slow down and be in a space of community, kindness and relaxation. Where strangers can come together, to share, celebrate and appreciate our time.

It embraces being the co-creator of your world and choosing to welcome life and its simple gifts; nature, time and connection.

Mornings in Nature

I got my first taste of permaculture volunteering in 2022. Via Workaway, I found a couple in the Veliko Tarnovo region of Bulgaria who needed help on their land. Listening to Sadguru’s ‘Save the Soil’ podcast campaign at the same time. I’d tune into the pace of nature while learning about the power of soil in Sadhguru’s playful and calm manner. So I’ve loved tuning back in with nature.

Our days start at 7.30 am with a typical Colombian breakfast of scrambled eggs and arepas accompanied by a hot drink and fruit salad. As the sun rises over the surrounding hills, the other volunteers and I pull on our wellies and head up to the muddy farm to weed, plant, rake leaves and gather firewood. Combining leftover leaves, mud and sticks that are lit on fire to create a carbon filter for water and fertilisation of the plants. I listen intensely in an attempt to understand the farmer talking in Spanish explaining how carbon attracts microorganisms to enhance the soil. It’s a blissful moment when you see a few days later what a little bit of weeding and gathering natural elements can do.

I enjoy these mornings with nature so much, the alarm clock frustration is quickly forgotten. Working, laughing and chatting with a group of inspiring individuals while we learn together to create something impactful.

Time to be

Just 3 hours a day working on the farm will afford you a bed and use of the facilities. Meaning from 11.30 I can choose what to do with my day and enjoy the time to simply be.

Once we’ve finished work, hot, dirty and sweaty, most volunteers whip off their boots and head down to the Ritmo River to cool off and relax. I choose a sunny spot on a rock where I can see the river flowing gently and jump into the cold lagoon-like pools when I get too hot.

One hour later, our lunch is prepared and waiting in the eco-lodge restaurant. A typically Colombian ‘menu del dia’ of beans, platano (smashed bananas fried), soup, rice and a salad.

With the time to do anything. The days flow from walks in nature to relaxing in the hammocks. Writing, reading or sharing stories, without the need to rush, we can simply be in this space and time.

On a walk, I got myself caught up in a 5-day love affair with little Billy. A street dog I named based on his tail that reminded me of a billy-goat. His adorable little face and cuddly persona won the hearts of the volunteers on the eco-lodge this week. As he devotedly followed us to work each day, and me to the toilet, hammocks, and dinner and even chased our tuk-tuk to town! He’s disappeared into the wilderness since I abandoned him for a tubing experience down the Rio River earlier this week. But I hope our paths cross again one day…

Connection

The evenings are when the volunteers and locals around the eco-lodge truly come together and connect. In a world that often feels disconnected these days, volunteering creates authentic, fun and meaningful work to align with ourselves and with others.

This week, the word ‘Peanut Butter’ has sparked laughter among the different accents in the group. From a strong Liverpudlian “peenot bUTTer” to a gentle American accent who barely pronounces a T.

Three meals are provided per day for roughly £6. At meal times, we talk about food from our home countries and connect over tasty meals and laughter.

After dinner, I play one of my guilty pleasures- “Happy Ending” by MIKA, and Serena from France loves it and blurts the lyrics out with me. Making others laugh and enticing them to add their own heart-wrenchers to the playlist. Some have never heard of Lauryn Hill or a less-known Amy Winehouse song and scribble it down in a notebook.

Intimate connections are forming between newfound sisters as we share stories over love, music and travels. You can tell we’ve all been on wild and wacky journeys. And with each laugh, story or song, we are able to relax, breathe and embrace our full selves deeper. Being accepted and able to share anything from big ideas to little thoughts and moments that make our hearts sing.

There’s nothing to hide, we get to make an impact AND be in this space and time together. It feels simple and it feels harmonious. As though nothing else matters and the present is truly a gift. 

Simple pleasure

How beautiful it is when we can be our full selves. When we get to savour the simplicity of being in nature and use our time for things that fulfil us, sure there’s a time for fast-paced living and planning that needs to happen. But how often do we stop and realise the simple joys in life are all available right here and now?

It’s what I strived for in previous travels but couldn’t quite grasp what it meant. To set on moving on to the next thing and looking for fulfilment in Instagram photos, parties and shiny things.

Nature, time and connection remind us what simplicity is. That we don’t need more to live in harmony- we need less. Whether it’s volunteering, a work project or a personal engagement, the reality is not that we have too little time, but that we need to change how we use it. When we do, we remind ourselves that all we need to feel fulfilled today can be achieved by pausing and engaging in life’s simple joys. Give yourself permission to simply be, because who knows what magic you might unlock?

With love and wonder,

Sophia xx

If you’re also interested in simple living and slow travel, you can check out Workaway and Worldpackers for volunteering projects across the world.

Hola, Sophia here! A former career girl turned full-time slow traveller. Most travellers like to tick boxes and follow itineraries. I like to go slow, explore and improvise- unveiling the magic of a simple life on the road. I’m a free spirit, simple-life seeker and overseas volunteer who embraces slow travel and simple living as a means to discover beauty and joy across the world. Join me on the journey by signing up for my new weekly newsletter: Unlocking Simplicity.