Costa Rica

My first experience with workaway. It's a Plattform where hosts offer free accommodation and food in exchange for work.
I arrived in Bagaces, three hours away from the capital, where the two hosts picked me up at the bus station.
One introduced himself as Master Rebis, the other one as Astaro. I knew the project had a shamanic background, so I thought ok, I'll call you whatever you want :)
Astaro was kind of his apprentice and he didn't speak much.

When we came to their ~5ha big property wich was mainly dry land with with a Forrest and a river running through, I met the other 4 volunteers.
Two of them where sympathic right from the beginning, the other two were a french couple wich left the next morning already. For them a dutch girl arrived, wich was a yoga teacher.

This week was the healthiest I had in a while. Here's how a regular day went off:

5:55 waking up by the sound of the howler monkeys sitting in the trees above us.

6:10 brushing teeth and having a cold bath in the river

6:30 strong Yoga class with Lonneke

8:00 breakfast: 2-3 Bananas, 2 Mangos, Papaya or Ananas + Granola

8:30 starting work, for example: Leveling up the floor, digging out stones, digging a shithole for the toilet 💩, raking the leaves, building a stone wall, constructing a kitchen house out of wood, driving around with the car collecting wood, preparing a yoga space, building a firespace, preparing a water pump and so on...

11:00 Snack break: some more fruits and nuts

13:00 call it a day and go bathing and chilling in the river

15/16:00 preparing the last meal of the day: Beans, rice or lentils with vegetables, salad, eggs...

18:00 Slow Yin Yoga in the moonlight

19:30 sitting, talking around the fire

21:00 going to bed, journaling, reading, sleeping

and then again :)

When I first heared that there is no more food after sundown, I was kind of concerned because I am a late eater. But after the first harder day and cheating with some nuts the next days were becoming more and more easy.

The other volunteers Pierre-Luc and Luca from Canada were experienced carpenter and construction workers, so Lonneke and me could learn a lot from them.
What they had to learn from us was tranquillity, because they got upset when they didn't got the right working materials even they asked for it for many days. Therefore there was a slight frustration against Master Rebis wich could finally be solved in a good discussion around the fire where everybody could explain his position, so could Rebis calm the boys down with his philosophy of living. In that round we worked out a list of priorities with wich everybody was ok.

On the weekend we took our first day out of two off and went to the beach.
It was a very relaxing day and even though I only had worked three days until then I kept appreciating the free time even more.

I am traveling now for 110 days and in Colombia I kind of forgot about my gratitude towards life. It is a daily exercise and practice though to be grateful for the normal, obvious things in live. For me then this travelling became normal, but when I think about it how blessed I am to have this once in a lifetime experience I gather my gratitude back again.

They say being grateful falls on the same level as love — it is one of the highest vibrational frequencies you can be at. The more time you can spend in gratitude and love, the more your body's frequency raises and the healthier your body becomes.

It's ok to forget about it, because when it comes back it can be even stronger.

What are you grateful for? Please comment :))))Read more