My Nomad Diary, Week 19:
Moments from the week:
- Booking a trip to the Galapagos Islands 🐢🐧
- Having the next four months planned out
My favourite places this week:
Another Monday in paradise and my first full working week in Medellín. Weather forecast was torrential rain for a week but in classic Colombian fashion it’s Kevin Bacon with no clouds and 23C. Making some good progress for my client in Jersey today, sending the first round of deliverables across and the anxiety is HIGH. Will he hate it? Have I completely missed the brief? Honestly, going to be a sweaty day or so awaiting feedback, wish me luck.
Tell you what, I love this co-living – there are some little things that are evident of a rushed job in the building – but the vibes are immaculate and it’s great to be surrounded by other people on exactly the same journey as me, instead of other backpackers.
Oh and later that day I got some great feedback from my client 😮💨 this project is going pretty well!! Long may it continue 🥳
Another day in the office and I’m taking it a bit easier this Tuesday, I racked up about 9 hours yesterday so I’m pretty worn out. Now, many of you reading that will think… ha… a 9-hour working day how cute, but the difference is, have you ever tracked your whole day? The coffee breaks, the chats in the office, the doom-scrolling on Insta, the twenty-minute toilet break, the lunch break and the pointless meetings that could’ve been an email. Most people only do about 4 hours of real work each day in between all the other crap… try doing 8 and it will wipe you out.
That can be the problem of working remotely, tabloids love to say remote workers sit in their PJs all day doing anything but work, but for the majority of us, we often do more than our traditional office counterparts. Why? Because we have less distractions in our “offices”, the lines between “home” and the “office” are often blurred and, I think, for a lot of us, we feel we have to overcompensate.
And with that in mind, I took it a bit easier today, focused on the time-sensitive tasks I had to do for my current project and pushed back on the low priority work for another day. I finished up at about 3pm, mulled around for a bit and then headed bowling with some of the guys from the co-living.
I couldn’t believe how fancy this bowling alley was, I felt like I was in a massive casino in Vegas. It had a Greek mythology theme with large sculptures of Zeus, Medusa and what I can assume was Jason, to name a few.
I got to spend a bit more one-on-one time with other people in the co-living and find out about what they did for work (content writing is super popular as a career choice), what drove them (a desire for freedom), what worried them (financial security) and what was next. All very interesting stuff!
Wednesday… do you know what… I don’t actually know what I did… forgot to write anything. Worked… drank loads of coffee… yeah, must’ve been it.
Thursday and it’s just another day at the office, all going well with my main project which is good, headed out for another 5K on the streets after a couple of days off. It’s still really difficult compared to a treadmill but I CBA with another gym and the quicker I get back into road-running, I’m hoping, the quicker my body will adapt again… but it’s bloody slow progress.
At the end of the day I went to paintball with a few of the guys and it was a really enjoyable evening, called it a night and that was that!
It’s Friday I’m back to work again, but a bit of a gap in my main project at the moment, so just focusing on writing some content for you lovely folk. Tried to venture out for another 5K but my legs are stiffer than a… let’s keep it PG… they’re just of no use today. I’ll call it on running this week and have another go on Monday.
Saturday I went for a wonder around the immediate neighbourhood, found a nice brunch spot, did some Spanish exercises and then went to a shopping mall to buy a foam roller, thrilling I know. Then, I spent the rest of the day, and much of the evening, scoping out the next few months.
I have one more week here in Medellín, then two weeks in Manizales in the coffee region, before heading off to country number 32… Ecuador! (🎵🎵🗣️ ECUADOOORRRRR!). I’m heading to a city called Cuenca, which is supposed to be a nice and quiet expat city… and then!? I’m going to the Galapagos Islands… and I’m finally going to see penguins in the wild (bucket list item ✅).
After Ecuador, I’m heading back to México for about 6 weeks to explore some more spots and view a handful of properties in Oaxaca, which is going to be my first long-term base later this year. Exciting stuff!
Sunday I went back to Parque Arví again (first visited in 2023), I love this place! It’s an absolutely massive (40,000 acre / 160sqkm) nature preserve, high up in the hills. After a long cable car ride, which always puts the fear of god into me, I made it into the park and I went for a wonder with a local guide to photograph flora and fauna. I wasn’t really concentrating when he started talking to me in Spanish, which is how I resulted in going on the tour, as, when in doubt I just say “yes” and see what happens 😅. We continued the whole tour in Spanish, which was a really big confidence boost… I couldn’t imagine conversing with somebody for almost 2 hours in Spanish a few months ago.
At the end of the day I headed back to the co-living and we went to play a game of Tejo, but my little brain was a bit overwhelmed from an adventurous day and I snuck out and went to bed… the true joy of solo travel.
See you next week 👋
