La Finca
March 2024
Girl’s Summer Camp. Big Brother. Garden of Eden. Rehab Center. These were the nicknames that we had for our ecological hotel, which was also a giant farm ranch sitting on the edge of the Guatemalan jungle. We were a 5 minute drive down a bumpy dirt road, and another 15 minute drive down the main highway from Poptun, a small farm town in the tropical northwestern region of Guatemala. At our largest, there was a total of 9 volunteers, all of us girls between the ages of 18 to 26 from Belgium, France, Germany, Croatia, Mexico, and the United States. There were no boy volunteers, but we were joined by frogs that hopped on us in the showers, fat spiders the size of my hand, reptiles that looked like the yellow spotted lizards from the movie “Holes”, spec-sized ticks that gave some of the volunteers hive-like skin infections, and even a scorpion that managed to crawl onto the bed and under the mosquito net of one of the girls. Luckily, she spotted the scorpion before getting into bed that night.
After my unforgettable experience volunteering on the Canary Islands, I wanted to find another work exchange that would allow me to save money, meet like-minded people, practice my Spanish and gain experience doing work in an area that I was curious about. I signed up for this volunteer exchange to work for 2 weeks as the designated social media and marketing person. In exchange for taking pictures, editing videos, and making at least one instagram and TikTok post per day, I received unlimited access to the hotel’s restaurant kitchen and my own room to sleep. The rest of the other volunteers signed up for the role to care for the horses. Since each of these volunteers had previous experience working with horses, they took turns waking up every morning to feed, ride, and then remove the never-ending amount of ticks off of the horses.
Power outages were frequent, an almost every 2 or 3 day occurrence, and the only reliable wifi and data service on the entire property was found in the hotel’s dining area. When I first arrived at the hotel, there was not enough space in main building with the rest of the volunteers, so I slept by myself in one of the isolated wooden plank treehouse meant for the guests. My bed sat next to a giant open window which provided a direct view to the luscious green jungle forest that I was sleeping within. The only thing that protected me from the falling leaves, insects, and animals was my mosquito net. The nights were piercingly loud as the nature was alive. I fell asleep to a plethora of different types of buzzing, chipping and rattling, and woke up frequently throughout the night from the whipping sounds of the tree branches on windy nights, or the crackling sounds nature falling onto the roof. Every time I walked around, I could feel my treehouse shake and wondered if my friends and family would read about my demise in the news, being in from a collapsed treehouse in Guatemala.
The other guests were all van life foreigners, over 50 year old Europeans traveling Guatemala by car, or local families here for a weekend trip. I only interacted with the other girls and the hotel staff. The work was easy, and with no where to go after, no way to get to town without a taxi or relying on Lucile, the only volunteer with a license and the bravery to drive us, it forced us to slow down and enjoy the moment for what it was. I did a lot of reading on my kindle, journaling of my travels, and sharing stories with the other girls about boys and our lives back at home. We had free access to the kitchen and all its organic ingredients that we used to cook tacos, vegetable sautes, smashed potatoes, and my favorite, using their deep fryer to fry fresh plantains or potatoes to make fries from scratch.
I spent my mornings sleeping until around 7, doing some yoga outside my treehouse, sitting on the uncomfortable wooden dining room tables to create the social media content, and then helping out in the kitchen. I viewed my time in the kitchen as a way for me to get more reps in for my Spanish practice. Unfortunately, my 3 weeks at the Spanish school here in Guatemala was not enough to keep up with the fast talking, slang, and jabs that the cooks made at one another. I used all my brain power to try to follow along to their conversations while I peeled potatoes and washed dishes, but usually could just catch a few words.
Once the horse girls came back around lunch time, we would eat lunch and then walk 5 minutes to the other side of the ranch, to visit the small freshwater lagoon connected to a natural spring. We spent hours at the lagoon sunbathing and cooling off in the refreshing pool. I even went down the straight, about 5 meter long, green half pipe waterslide that only had flowing water at around 4pm. We took the spare bed sheets from the hotel to use to lay out, read, and nap on the grassy brush along the lagoon.
On some afternoons, we ventured outside of the ranch to do activities like visiting the caves. Chalan, one of the maintenance workers who had been working on the property for over 27 years, took us on a hike to visit the caves, an activity offered by the hotel that would usually be about 75Q, or $10 per person. Carrying his knapsack and machete to cut down any branches in the way of the trail, he led our all-girl volunteer group through cow farms, hills, and more thick jungle. The caves were pitch black, cold and moist inside like a refrigerator since there was no sunlight. Chalan carefully guided us with candles deeper into the slippery caves and take a dip in the frigid natural pools.
Another day, we took one of the cars on the farm to the main downtown area of Poptun. Lucile, the fearless French volunteer drove us in the only truck that our boss let us borrow. While the two other French volunteers sat in the front to help Lucile with directions, the rest of us piled into the trunk of the car that was so old and worn down, that the back doors could only close partially by being tied by wires. You could even see through cracks on the floor the dirt road beneath us. Still, we relied on this barely functioning vehicle for an exciting girls thrift that involved eating fried chicken at the Guatemala chain fast food, thrifting at Megapaca, the main thrift of Guatemala that reminded me of Goodwill, and visiting the pharmacy so that the girls with the tick infections could buy medicine.
I also got a tiny glimpse into what a horse girl life was like. After not having ridden on a horse in almost 15 years, I never had an interest in horseback riding, thinking it looked boring riding in circles through a manicured trail. But after the girls took me on an hours long ride through the peaceful landscapes of the neighboring pastures and hills of the forest landscape, and actually having to steer my horse to stay on the trail and avoid hitting my head and legs on trees, I understood the serene appeal of riding a horse. It hit me that I was not just riding a metal object with wheels, or a surfboard in the ocean, but I was riding a sentient being that felt hunger, fear, and fatigue, but also loved affection and cuddles. And I was using this animal to ride and explore parts that of the natural world that would be significantly more difficult had I just walked.
The farm felt like an escape, a natural healing center, a sacred place with an almost whimsical energy that allowed us girls to feel safely isolated from the rest of the world in our testosterone-free space. I relished in being the only American, as I loved to ask the girls about what their lives were like back home in each of their respective countries, and if they felt the same pressure of buying a house, finding a well-paying job, and getting married, while also trying to feel fulfilled in their soul.
There were moments though when I missed home and wondered what the hell I was doing in the jungle of Guatemala by myself as an almost 26 year old single woman, and why I left my comfortable job as a tech consultant in the dream city of New York. In the first week that I arrived, all in the same 3 days, I ended up getting a small fever, hurting my back from falling off a horse, and having uncomfortable diarrhea. It did not help that I was still living in my treehouse at the time so every time I had to use the bathroom, I had to climb down the stairs and then carefully run across a small creek and to the bathroom.
I discovered bugs and animals in shapes and colors that I did not know that existed, I received more bites than I could count, and I wondered every time I slept if I would wake up to a scorpion crawling on me. As uncomfortable as I may have felt at times, I always felt like this was how we as human beings, were supposed to be living, harmoniously alongside nature. Maybe not necessarily in the jungle, but at least more attune to whatever the natural environment was around us, instead of spending our time scrolling on screens, eating overly processed snacks, while laying in our artificially lit bedrooms.
Whenever there were bugs or nature found in places unexpected, I reminded myself that we were living in and encroaching onto their backyard first. We were not meant to be living in suburbs or cities segregated from the natural world. The food that most effectively nourished ourselves with should come from nature, and not from plastic bags and factories. Even mentally, as slow as life was here, I never felt bored, but more at peace. If I ever felt anxious, I would go on a short 20 minute walk around the property and would almost instantly feel at ease, reminded of how small I was relative to the vastness of the tall jungle book like trees around me.
