Volunteering, Aguas Corrientes, Uruguay
January 16-February 22, 2016
Our travels in South America have been both wonderful and marvelous but its definately taken a toll on our travel budget. Since flexibility and time are two luxuries we have, we decided to check for volunteering opportunities to slow down our pace and give back. There are several websites we use which list free or low-cost volunteering opportunities around Latin America which include: Volunteer Latin America, Free Volunteering, Volunteer South (Central) America. We ended up using a website which we've been members for years called Workaway and since this would be our first experience our goal was to search for something which seemed established with great reviews from past "workawayers". We eventually found a match with a soft spoken American chap named Steve where we would work and homestay at his farm called "Atalaya".
Our Accommodations - Volunteer House
We've been given a very comfortable set up with our own little house complete with 2 bedrooms/bathrooms and a well equipped kitchen to cook our meals.
Utopia in Uruguay
When it was time to slow down our pace and give our travel budget a break we opted to try our first experience using a website called Workaway. The concept of the site is aimed at pairing hosts with volunteers to lend a hand doing a huge variety of projects all over the world. We put out about 20 emails to various hosts listed on workaway and eventually got a few responses. Among them was an American fellow named Steve who past workawayer's had blogged about and raved that their experience had been amazing. With that kind of feedback we felt it would be a good first exchange and made arrangements for a one month volunteer commitment at Steve's farm called "Atalaya / Eco Park Uruguay" located in the country side about 1 hour north of the capital city Montevideo.
The farm is really beautiful and set on 144 hectres of flat land, right by the river. The property consists of the main house and the volunteer house, plus 3 other houses currently in varying degrees of disrepair. There is also a club house and swimming pool (also in disrepair), a garage, lots of green space, fields and forest, half an island on the river and a lovely garden with vegetables, herbs and flowers. There are also the most beautiful sunsets here, made even better by the fact that sometimes we climb a ladder with Steve onto the roof to get a better view. And the nights are so clear you can make out the milky way strewn across the sky. We're in paradise here!
The agreement is we do 4 hours work, 5 days a week and in return we have a house to live in and food to eat. The food that's supplied is strictly vegetarian and we've been eating a lot of good, fresh food and feeling really healthy! We can honestly say its been a comfortable and generous exchange and we think we've been spoiled to all future workaway experiences; they'll have a lot to live up to! Most of the time we work from 7:30am to 12pm and then have the rest of the time to explore the area. During our time here we've done varied work including: planting lettuce, herbs, beets and flowers and having the opportunity to eat some of our own work! We've harvested tomatoes, herbs, mammoth zuchini's and a variety of other veg which is sometimes given away or used fresh in our meals. We've dug compose trenches, cleared bamboo forests to make a walking path, raked grass, collected fire wood and processed it to be used for winter, painted, cleaned up one of houses on the property, held a ladder while Steve chainsawed a tree (hikes!) and Doug has driven the tractor. All made sweeter when Steve makes up a big batch of fresh smoothies and delivers it out to the work site!
Our host Steve is a very interesting guy and I'm sure what we know has barely scratched the surface to depth of his life experiences. We know he set out at the age of 19 on a Mormon mission to Uruguay and then left the Mormon church not long after and flowed with the hippy movement for many years following. He traveled along the American west coast eventually to Alaska where he was going to be a fisherman. He's worked for the logging industry in Arizona, he's set up Crocs retail outlets in South America and he publishes papers and gives talks on the issue of genital mutilation in children. He's a soft spoken and patient guy who can get really fired up if given the right topic of discussion. He hates wearing a shirt (who can blame him in this heat!), plays guitar, listens to classical, loves to watch the sunset and enjoys fresh flowers. On the first night we arrived at the farm, Steve carried out his dinning room table and perched it on his lawn then served us a delicious spaghetti dinner, under the stars by candle light. That's the kind of guy he is.
It seems that along with our varied daily work, we also did a lot of varied activities with Steve too. We've taken his boat onto the river and chilled on a deserted beach. Shared a sunset beer at the bar on the hill and more sunsets on his lawn. We've experienced his fun side which consists of revving his engine at the entrance to his farm then gunning it while shouting "hold on, we might not make this turn!" as we eventually realize he's done this trick a million times! We've entertained a group of boy scouts for a lesson in gardening and he invited us to attend a gaucho rodeo and a small town Uruguayan carnival. We've had many truck rides together where we chat sometimes about serious things and sometimes about funny things. Gone to the market, flown a kite in his yard and star gazed while Steve turned up the volume to his classical music making the moment feel pretty magical. Its been a wonderful experience and Steve has been a great host. Sadly he's selling the property to downsize his workload. Its unfortunate that other volunteers may never get to experience Atalaya but someone will inherit a wonderful piece of paradise and hopefully continue to share it with others.
The Property - Atalaya
A promotional video of the property has recently been completed which you can view called "A tour of Atalaya".
Adventures During Our Stay
In addition to the varied work we did during the week we also had the opportunity to join Steve around the property and around the area. It was really great that we were able to experience so many different things during our time here.
Gaucho Rodeo
In the 18th and 19th centuries gaucho's inhabited Uruguay and parts of Argentina and Brazil and became a national symbol and admired in legends, folklore and literature. Today it mostly means someone who is a country person experienced in traditional cattle ranching work. In this area of Uruguay the gaucho look is still rooted in traditionalism and is quite unique.
We had the opportunity to visit a nearby village and experience local rodeo life!