Imbassai- Eco Hostel Lujimba

From January 24th to February 9th, I stayed at Eco Hostel Lujimba. The owner is from Argentina and lives with his son 150 meters from the beach.

I worked in the hostel with 6/7 other volunteers. 5 hours a day, 5 days a week. In return, I received free accommodation and breakfast, which allowed me to save a lot of money. Originally, I wanted to finance multiple stays through volunteer work during my trip, but since the opportunity never presented itself and I wasn't financially dependent on it, I decided to have this experience just before I fly back home.

I slept in a regular guest room. The beach was only 150m away and almost empty, so there weren't many people lying around like sardines. Breakfast was served from 8:00 to 10:00AM, and included cake, bread rolls, eggs, fruit, juice, ham, cheese, etc.

In the first few days, we enjoyed sleeping in and asked after breakfast what tasks we should take on. The working hours ranged from two to three hours.

After a few days, an Argentine arrived who was bothered by the fact that we didn't have an organized daily routine, so a work schedule was introduced. Now, we really had to work 5 hours.

There were three shifts:

8:00AM-1:00PM, 12:00PM-5:00PM, and 5:00PM-10:00PM. The order in which everyone worked changed every day.

Work included: painting walls, plastering house walls, tidying and cleaning rooms, but not guest rooms, doing laundry, helping in the kitchen, watering flowers, assisting at the reception.

Other volunteers were: two Argentine couples, one French couple, and one Argentine woman. I particularly liked that we all spoke Spanish, as the Argentines didn't speak English. The French spoke everything: Portuguese, Spanish, French, English, and with hands and feet😂

We had pizza nights together, grilled a lamb, ate Churripan, went to street parties together, and organized Caipirinha nights. During work, we could take a break in the pool or cook something. I especially became close with the French. Lorena and Ben from Marseille were pretty crazy, but also incredibly warm-hearted. It felt a bit like we had known each other forever.

In our free time, we went to the beach or took the bus to Praia do Forte.

Actually, besides work, I did nothing else in the last two weeks except: beach, hammock, reading books, going to the supermarket, hammock, pool, drinking Caipirinhas.