The Workaway Ambassadors Have Arrived

Almost as far south as Antarctica, you can safely call Patagonia a remote location. In recent years, tourism has taken hold in a handful of locations like Torres del Paine National Park, El Chalten, and the adventure tourism capital of Pucon, where you recently heard about the nearby volcanic eruption.

Roads have been built, a few paved, and bus routes and flights have grown in number. It’s all gotten a lot easier to maneuver as a tourist/traveler but as a Workaway volunteer we had our work cut out for us when traveling to our next job in the town of La Junta in Chilean Patagonia.

We didn’t know where to start. We couldn’t even find this place on a map! Even the host warned potential volunteers that they are located in one of the most remote parts of Chile and travel is difficult with buses and ferries that leave once or twice a week. They boast the life motto:

“If you’re in a hurry, you’re wasting your time.”

We enjoy being off the grid, so we were determined to find a way to get there. After a lot of research, questioning locals, and several travel days in two countries we managed to find our way.

Rough Itinerary

6 Hour Bus– Puerto Natales, Chile to El Calafate, Argentina

12 Hour Bus– El Calafate to Los Antiguos, Argentina

2 Hour Wait– Shuttle full crossing border back into Chile

1 Hour Shuttle– Los Antiguos, Argentina to Chile Chico, Chile

1 Day Wait– Only ferry to next bus full until next day

5 Hour Ferry/Bus Combo– Chile Chico to Coyhaique

1 Day Wait– Only bus to next bus full

6 Hour Bus– Coyhaique to La Junta (Destination)

30 Minute Walk– Walk from bus station to home of Workaway hosts- Paul and Konomi

Phew! We made it!

We got off the bus after 9pm and walked under the gorgeous disappearing sunset and then turned on our headlamps the rest of the way. Hoping we had followed directions accurately, we walked into a dark house 30 minutes later hoping to find our hosts. To our surprise (and apparently theirs), we found a tiny room full of volunteers chatting with our new hosts. We introduced ourselves and were greeted by stares. Maybe these people aren’t very friendly, we both quietly fretted to ourselves.

We sat down and joined the crowded room and the next words uttered helped make sense of the situation… eventually.

“Can you tell us what a Workaway Ambassador is?”

A bit confused why they were asking us, I bumbled through a description that I thought best explained what I’d seen on Workaway’s Facebook page seeking Ambassadors. After my rough explanation, I asked why they were curious and asking us. “Paul and Konomi told us all that THE Workaway Ambassadors were coming,” they replied.

Oooohhhhhh… You see, 5 years ago while backpacking in Europe, my BFF Gabe, and I found ourselves rescued out of an uncomfortable WWOOFing volunteer experience by what we thought was a generous CouchSurfer, David. Turns out, he’s the founder of Workaway. So we got 2 weeks of first-hand knowledge of Workaway and the friendly guy who started it all.  He even named me an honorary ambassador when he heard about our upcoming trip. As our trip drew nearer, I never saw the ambassador emblem on our profile, however. He’s a busy guy, so I just forgot about it until we arrived late that night in La Junta.

Turns out everyone in Workaway can see a prominent “Ambassador” emblem on our profile, except us. We told these curious volunteers we had no idea the emblem was on our profile and that we only have it because I know the founder. We all gave a laugh at the confusion, joked about our important “royal” status, and the quiet tension eased in the room. Maybe everyone was nice after-all now that they knew they weren’t under investigation.

After a minor tent mix-up (we didn’t have one), we spent the night in borrowed sleeping bags and mats in the newly constructed work shed. The next morning we awoke to actually see the property, our hosts, and fellow volunteers in daylight. It seemed another reason the volunteers greeted us with wide eyes the previous night was due to the fact that we were the 17th and 18th volunteer there. The crowded room we saw the first night was only a fraction of everyone in attendance.

Paul and Konomi are expats from England and Japan respectively. They’ve been living on their land for 5 years in an earthbag house they hand-built themselves, and their property continues to be a sort of lab for permaculture and environmentally friendly practices. Despite all the work required to build and cultivate their land, they only recently started accepting volunteers through Workaway 3 months ago. They decided not to turn away any volunteers in the likely event of no shows, changed schedules, or other time constraints and logistics of traveling to such a remote location. They never believed so many eager travelers would all come at once!

Our Workaway hosts Paul and Konomi, relaxing on our day off.

Our Workaway hosts’ house, built with earth bags as insulation.

Glacial stream on their other property where we spent our day off.

Kristy and our Workaway host Paul, walking through his land in Patagonia.

Paul and Konomi’s home made of earthbags. *Photo credit: volunteer Pascal Comes

Never-the-less, Paul and Konomi adjusted and worked hard to make us all feel at home. With 2 hectares (approximately 5 acres) of land, there was plenty of space and projects for us all to complete without getting in each others’ way. As unskilled laborers, Marea and I specialized in digging and pulling grass. In our nearly two weeks, we dug a “jungle” path in an overgrown part of the land for easier access and 4 terraces at the entrance of the land for future planting. Other projects by our more skilled fellow volunteers included a house extension, building and hanging doors, managing the greenhouse and the construction of an earthbag pyramid meant to house a hottub for the cold and rainy Patagonia winters.

Showing off one of our finished terraces.

The “before” picture of the garden terraces we created for our volunteer project.

Kristy working on the trail we built as part of our Workaway volunteer project.

Posing with the most useful tool of an unskilled Workaway laborer: the shovel.

The “before” photo of the trail we built as part of our Workaway volunteer project.

Digging terraces. *Photo credit: Paul Coleman

Cooking and dishwashing was a full-time job as well with nearly 20 people’s dirty dishes for three meals a day and no running water. Konomi led the charge on cooking with her delicious chef skills while we all took turns washing dishes one at a time due to the small size of the kitchen sink space. Meals were always something we looked forward to. “What time is it?” was a frequent phrase uttered as we shoveled piles of dirt, desperately hoping it was time to break for food.

The meal portions were generous, included natural ingredients from their land and neighbors’, and it was absolutely delicious. We found every excuse to go in for seconds when we had the chance. With volunteers hailing from Poland, Barcelona, France, Portugal, Austria, and the USA, a trend was started where we’d take turns cooking a popular national dish for the crew. In our case, whatever we knew how to cook. We enjoyed curry, tempura, tortilla Catalon-style, banana bread (mine), French savory cake, French bread, lasagna, homemade pasta, porridge, and tons of fresh veggies from the garden. My mouth is watering right now thinking of all the great and diverse meals we had, especially since we’re back on our own and responsible for our own cooking. At least I got a few new recipes along the way that I’ll try to bring back home with me. No promises they’ll live up to what the experts delivered.

Everyone focused on the task at hand… eating. *Photo credit: Paul Coleman

One of our international meals. *Photo credit: Paul Coleman

The “dome” where the volunteers had meals on nice days.

Paul and Konomi chose to have no running water at their ecofriendly residence to force themselves and their volunteers to conserve as much as possible, so we got our fresh water from the nearby stream and dirt was washed off at the campground showers in town. As town was an hour roundtrip walk and Paul and Konomi paid for each one, things got a bit rustic. Not to mention the use of a dry compost toilet as well as “nature’s toilet” for the rest.

We ended up sleeping in the work shed made of literal dirt walls the entire time, so although we were sad to leave all our new friends at the end, it was time for a “fresh” adventure.

Kristy stretching outside our “house” (aka the storage shed).

Hanging out in the tool shed that we used as a house during our volunteer project. This is why you should travel with a tent.

Kristy looking like a pirate after a lot of digging.

A view of our workshed “home” made out of dirt and earthbags.

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Note: I later found Workaway’s official description of an Ambassador and feel much better about our Ambassador status. Although, I’m still hoping that sharing my enthusiasm for Workaway counts under my strategic goals.

“What is a Workaway ambassador?

A Workaway ambassador is a volunteer nominated by us to represent Workaway in various countries and to promote the site while travelling.

Workaway Ambassadors are volunteers that the workaway team know personally and have strategic goals to achieve.

Within those goals are; promoting the site in the places where they are currently travelling, actively looking for new hosts and projects, writing about their volunteer experiences on blogs, and social media outlets like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram,  taking photos and quality videos of their experiences etc.”