Want to travel cheaply?

There are travelers who want to travel cheaply and in return perform daily work tasks. That's what we became for 4 weeks.

We live in a beach house, have a huge garden and outdoor kitchen, three dogs and two kittens. At any time we can take a surfboard and jump into the ocean waves. For a moment, our dream doesn't seem so far away.

ocean waves at Our fingertips

In exchange for staying, we do four hours of work every day that we enjoy. Besides new ideas, it brings us a lot of experience and in some ways it has confirmed what we would like to do in the future.

What kind of work is it? We were accepted into our first volunteer job thanks to Matheos experience in carpentry. He had a lot of work ahead of him in the forging and repairing department. The first job was making a tarp for the tractor bed, followed by fitting a new lock to the gate, building a composter, hanging outdoor decorations, creating support stands for flowers, as well as manly work in the garden with a shovel and painting the walls of the house.

roofing on Anna's house

Vanessa didn't use her skills much here, but she picked up a lot of new ones. She helped in the garden and after "training" she had a free hand over the care of the flowers and planting new ones.

Vanessa's new skill

gardening

We both had a nice job in a lovely environment with a good team.

The rules

Like any employer, Anna had rules to keep the program running smoothly. Some of them: No food and no pets in rooms, if you cannot do your hours then your partner does them for you (when you are sick or hungry), if the dogs bark, check out why.

Our top experiences

Our goal in Ecuador was to learn how to surf. We took a lesson with Jasper- ig. He and his friend explained the basic steps to us, and were supportive and encouraging the whole time. After about an hour, we were both standing on our boards and after all the joyful feelings, the sport was engraved in our hearts. While volunteering, we were able to rent surfboards so we could practice anytime.

we could practice anytime

Another favorite experience of ours was the food track that comes literally to our front door every Tuesday and Saturday. Since everyone always enjoyed having me, a line immediately formed around the food truck and bags were filled with fresh fruit, vegetables, eggs and cheese. The prices were different each time, but always good. Unfortunately this was not the case with the shrimp vendor who knocked on the door from time to time, so we decided to wait for the fishermen to return one morning and purchase 2 large fish for $5. There was also an opportunity that our friend took and bought 12 small fish for $5. Shrimp are also available for purchase, but not until the afternoon.

the food truck

Tips from Manabi

Puerto Lopez: whale watching, lots of restaurants and bars on the beach and the best pizza
Isla de la Plata: by locals called "cheap Galapagos" (get here from Puerto Lopez with watching wales included)
Cayo Paraiso: snorkeling
Manta: kitesurfing
Puerto Cayo: surfing

Acknowledgements

Our hosts were always kind, helpful and grateful for the work they did. On the first day of our visit, Anna took us shopping in Jipijapa, as Puerto Cayo is a small port town with no major stores. Occasionally we were treated to lunch together, wine, the best homemade ice cream or sitting around the fire. None of this is a given when volunteering, so it is very fortunate to have hosts like Anna and Steve. During the time they were abroad, Jiselle and Sylvain were put in charge of running the volunteering program and fortune smiled on us for a second time. They had an incredibly human approach, working with us where needed, explaining things in a visual way and teaching us a lot in the gardening context. It was always fun to be in their presence, and we also got to know some great Filipino food. Thank you!

Chilling in hamack after "hard" work

Volunteering in Ecuador