Part 9.a: A Breath of Fresh Air

In April, I was full of hope: after two months suffering in Peru, I was headed back to Colombia with Mama! This time, to a tiny mountain town a couple of hours outside of Medellin called Jardín (meaning 'Garden').

Jardín was like an absolute dream to me. Everywhere I looked, I was surrounded by shades of green that I'd never seen before. We were at an altitude of 5,741 feet, which was a big change from two months at sea level. The subtropical highland climate, as it's called, makes for comfortable temperatures and beautiful scenery.

I felt like I could breathe deeply again, and all of my stress from the past two months evaporated in the Andes mountains. Every day, we went for walks in the mountains, finding incredibly photograph-friendly scenes behind every turn. Colombia was healing me, once again.

Jardín was a big turning point for me, because I got my first online job. From living off of my savings to having an income finally, I was able to loosen up a little bit and not stress out too much about my finances.

Life in Jardín was slow, and we were all three back together again, living in a beautiful Airbnb in the middle of the small town. We spent many afternoons in the town square, eating ice cream and people watching. One of the things I love about Colombia is that the town squares are always filled with old men drinking coffee, children running around playing, and people gathering together to meet and chat.

There are a lot of tourist activities to do in Jardín, and we ended up going paragliding and doing a coffee farm tour. The paragliding was not my favorite, since I'm terrified of heights, and my professional guide had to land us much quicker than planned because I was definitely on my way to vomiting.

The coffee tour was super fun, and I highly recommend it to anybody who ever finds themselves in Jardín one day. We went on an excellent private tour and learned a lot about how coffee is grown and made. The views were beautiful, and transportation and a great lunch were both included.

I was not excited to leave Jardín. Honestly, I could've stayed there for months. But my experience in the DR pushed me to move forward and explore more. Ecuador was on Mama's bucket list, so we packed it up and headed to my first Workaway experience.