Why are we here?
- May 11, 2017
- 3 min read
When guests ask us how we came to live in a tiny village in southern Spain, we explain…´just like you´.
We were on our very own Grown up Gap Years back in 2013, driving across Europe, camping each night alongside our rather rickety 1998 VW Golf. We found ourselves in the Alpujarras, a region about 1 hour from Granada and we were attempting to climb Spain´s highest mountain, Mulhacen. So, based on a recommendation from a friend, we headed to a very small hotel in a mountain village.
We had seen a lot of Europe in the 3 months prior, driving across most of Italy, Switzerland, France and Spain. However, it was only when we stumbled across Mairena, population 250, that we both really found something different. It was almost instantaneous. We had found somewhere ´magical´…which sounds over the top and silly, but for the pair of us it just seemed right in so many ways.
We spent a fantastic few days in the village: hiking, eating, drinking and exploring. Then on checkout we got chatting to the owners of the hotel we had been staying at. Before I realised what I was saying, I had pretty much asked for a job. Not a ´job´ per se, but a…. ´´if you ever need help do let us know¨. Thinking nothing of it we continued on our way, little did we know that a few months later we´d be back in the village, this time as woofers or wwoofers!
WWOOF – World-Wide Opportunities on Organic Farms is the official term, but it seems to have morphed into many formats and variations all around the world. It now tends to be used as a general blanket term for people volunteering their time or skills to a given business or farm that needs help, in exchange for board and lodgings.
It was perfect for us as we had a few months to spare on our gap year / sabbatical and we needed to stop spending money. We knew we loved the area but we really wanted to experience it for a little longer and really get to know the country, the culture and the locals.
And so it was….
3 fantastic months in Mairena then ensued. We made friends with the locals, despite our pigeon Spanish. We ate way too much tapas and therefore drank way too much beer. We learnt a lot about hotels and quite a bit about organic farming. However most importantly we had a fun time, in a beautiful part of the world, and we had a chance to think about what it was we wanted in our lives. We worked quite hard, around 5 hours a day but we never really called it work. For us painting yoga shalas, picking cherries and driving guests around the mountains was so different to the work of corporate life that each day really felt different and new.
The time then came for us to return to Australia, but only for a short while. We are now back in Mairena, for the third time in four years, and it hasn´t lost that ¨magical¨ feeling…
Our volunteer / WWOOF / workaway / grown up gap year experience has been a genuine winner for us and now we have decided that we would like to help others to do similar. So, we developed Grown up Gap Years (GUGY).
We now trying to help match people from around the world with their own truly unique grown up gap year experiences. We´ve been visiting a wide range of places that we think others might love and so now we are sharing them!
We are living a life we love and encourage everyone to take a little career break, and do the same. Whether it´s for 3 weeks, 3 months or 3 years, we personally think that you will never regret taking that career break or sabbatical and will hopefully remember your grown up gap year for many years to come.
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