Trying out tyres...

We´ve been discussing building techniques with Don Rodrigo, our builder, to see if we could try a few changes in the design and materials to make the house a bit greener. For example, I´ve been reading a lot about lime based cements which seem to be all round a lot better than convensional cements. It can be used for mortar and rendering and apart from its great building properties, its also aesthetically different, more rustic and smooth looking. Unfortunately Don Rodrigo´s not overly keen, he doesnt have much experience combining that kind of mortar with normal porous bricks and worries that it could affect the structure of the house if it goes wrong. He seems positive about the lime rendering though, so that seems like a reasonable compromise!

We are also looking in to using ´guadua´ bamboo for fences and other bits and pieces as it grows happily around these parts and is as sturdy as timber if treated properly, so that could be an interesting project for us in the meantime. At the moment we are also working on a trail down through the forest so that we can access the stream, the area that will eventually be our veggie plot and our composting area and just generally make the most of that part of our garden. We decided to do this with recycled tyres because it´s very steep and they make great stairs. So, we´ve been loading up on bald tyres at the roadside tyre-changing stations and lugging them up to the plot in the back of our car (an old Renault Clio, not especially designed for the purpose!), cutting open the tops and packing them solid with earth to make a stairway. It´s pretty labour intensive but it´s a great way to recycle the old tyres, build our stairs and best of all, it´s practically free! Eventually we might cover the surface of each step with gravel or cement to make it less slippery but for the meantime its a great alternative to scrambling up and down the slope!

We´ve also been getting advice on what sort of things to plant and it seems that the easiest crops to plant on the slope are corn, yucca, granadines and coffee.  We´d like to flatten off a section for greens and maybe plant a couple of plantain or banana trees down there too. We´ll have to get some compost going though because the red soil´s useless for planting anything. It´d be great to get some Californian red worms eventually to keep the plants well fed. In the meantime though we´re just digging out the stairway and then hopefully we´ll build a tire wall to fill with earth and flatten off a bit of the garden up the top.

Everybody needs good neighbours...

The area where we bought our plot of land used to be a posh countryside gated community but it went bust just as it got started in 1998. These days there are over 100 plots which are empty and waiting to be built on and as the whole project was left in huge debt, these were seized by the state and were sold off pretty cheaply - much to the disgust of the 30 wealthy families who live in the first phase of the development.

Originally the whole idea was to make the whole community an exlusive place to live, with rules about building designs, rules about access, a hefty monthly administration fee, 24 hour security, porters, street lighting, paved access etc etc. Although this wasn´t really the sort of place we´d ideally choose to live, the benefit of being able to leave the house for a month at a time when we travel, not worrying about security, was attractive and the land was a bargain.

It now appears that the original community want to try to cut off the other sections to try and keep their area exclusive and to not have to invest in the infrastructure needed to support a possible 100 houses more. Especially when these houses are likely to be bought by normal people (without house servants for example) who have paid half the price for their land that the original residents paid thirteen years ago.

I see their point.

We have written two letters to the president of the community explaning to them about our plans and offering to pay something towards the community costs but haven´t recieved an answer to either letter. The only time we have had any direct contact with the ´junta´was when we arrived with 4000 bricks on the back of a truck and were told that we didn´t have permission to build and therefore will not be allowed in! We did however have planning permission granted by this point (very few of the other houses in the ´conjunto´ have planning permission) and we clearly have access rights outlined on our deeds, so we insisted and were let in. The president however requested an audience as we were leaving and as politely as possible informed us that they wouldn´t be willing to assist us in any of our building needs (water or power connection) but would, for the meantime until some kind of arrangement was made, allow us access.

The next day we passed by town planning to pick up a copy of our building plans and the helpful chaps there let us know that the president of the ´junta´ has passed by that morning to demand the reason why we´d been granted planning permission given that we only have access rights by foot! We spoke to the head legal architect guy in charge of town planning and he assured us that this was not the case.

That was about a month ago and we haven´t heard anything since. We´ll wait and see. The last thing we want is problems with the neighbours and I think we´ve been pretty careful not to step on any toes since we arrived. Our immediate neighbours (who are also in the outer zone) are really nice, one is lending us water while we build and the other is lending us electricity. One is a bit of a Ned Flanders character and has seven barking dogs, but with time we´re getting used to that!

Hopefully moving to the countryside will still allow us the peace and quiet that we were hoping for, although I´m starting to think it might end up giving us a stomach ulcer instead!

The technical bit...

Last month we went through to Cali to meet an expert in alternative energy solutions. We found their website when we were researching how to get our hands on all the kit we´ll need for off the grid living as despite having the perfect conditions for self sufficiency here in Popayan (no need for heating/cooling, 12 hours of daylight year round, relatively high rainfall), there are very few places that can provide you with the equipment or the expertise needed to get things up and running. APROTEC seemed to know what they were talking about.

Here in Popayan we spotted a solar water heater for sale in an electrics shop for around a million pesos with a capacity of 120 litres. They had it out the front of the shop so that you could open the tap and feel the teperature of the water, it wasn´t that warm but aparently it normally produces between 40 and 90´C. It was one of those ones with glass tubes on the front and a water tank at the top and as the water heats up in the glass tubes, the hot water rises and the cold water sinks meaning that the water coming out of the tank should always be hot. The guy in the shop didnt seem able to answer many of our questions though and didnt have access to information about any other solar based products so we thought we´d be best heading into the city to ask the experts at Aprotec.

After punching our electricity consumption details into a spreadsheet, the green expert in Cali suggested that we´d need a solar panel system of about three panels and a couple of large batteries, convertors etc. But that we´d have to find a way of living without a fridge or washing machine. The washing machine´s not such a big deal because up until recently we were doing our washing at the hostel anyway. The fridge is tricky though. Having tried living without a fridge before, I´m not really interested in doing it again!

It seems that the fridge alone would consume more energy than the whole rest of the house, by a long way. The solution offered by Aprotec was a tiny chest fridge which costs a whopping 4,000,000 Pesos. Eight months minimum salary in Colombia, to put it in perspective. We´re still trying to figure out a solution to this issue as we´ve heard about gas fridges but we´re reluctant to rely to heavily on gas as we´ll already need canisters for cooking. In Miami, thanks to the RV travelling snowbirds, there seems to be a few different solar and off the grid solutions and as we´ll be there in May, we might check out the options. Saying that, with 20% import tax, it´s probably not worth it.

Meanwhile we´re trying to adjust out living habits to get ready for the day when we´ll really need to be careful of how much energy and water we use...but cold showers and living with out a fridge? We´ll have to figure something out!

The first bricks laid!

Thanks to Don Rodrigo´s keen eye, we were able to avoid serious long term issues and so we figured he´d earned the contract.  Besides he seems really nice and the labourers are the son, nephew and brother of Nata, who we´ve known pretty much since we arrived in Popayan. We know the family fairly well and it´s nice to support them too.

We discussed some ideas with Don Rodrigo right from the start, letting him know about our plans for rainwater harvesting, solar pannels and general low impact living, he seemed to be behind the idea 100%. He even suggested some ideas about reed filter systems for sewage and solar water pumps for getting water up to the veggie plot from the little stream in the forest. Great to meet someone with the know-how needed to put in place the ideas that we have but have no idea where to start!

The first thing was to build a hut to store the materials and to buy the bulk of the bricks, supports and cement to get the foundations started. As I mentioned before, nothing in Colombia is ever done with much urgency. We are now three weeks in to the building part (about 5 months in to the whole process) and apart from a lot of measuring, a few holes, a few supports in iron and cement and about a meter of bricks laid, we´re getting a little bit impatient to see progress!

Our fault...

Everybody in Popayan who is not a builder, warns you that all builders are dodgy. All builders in Popayan tell you that clients are very unreliable and often dont pay for work done.... The reality must lie somewhere in between.

We got a few recommendations for builders and contractors from friends and people we know, although everybody insisted that we must personally buy all the materials and be checking up on the workers at least once a day to make sure there´s no funny business. We took the first recommended builder out to look at the plot and quote us for the first stage, the leveling, retaining wall and foundations for the house. Within two days we had a quote back which looked reasonable, but here you never take the first quote so we invited the handyman from the hostel out to take a look. He´s the brother in law of Nata, who works here at the hostel and it turns out has been working in construction since he was 13 years old, he has a builders permit and has built many houses over the years. He took one look at the land and said that despite needing the contract pretty badly at the moment, he wouldn´t build the house on the plans no matter what you paid him because there´s a fault line running right across the width of the plot. About 2 metres from where the first wall was to be built. Seemingly water has been filtering through the earth and collecting in an underground chamber which has started to split open and according to Rodrigo, puts us at risk of slipping gradually into the forest should we try to put pressure on the land at that point.......back to square one!

Back to the architects to change the designs, back to speak to the engineers about the possibility of building on a fault that´s possibly 8 metres deep, back to town planning to see if they´d accept modifications without having to go through the whole application process again. To be honest, the whole thing was starting to look like a bit of a nightmare, we were wondering what sort of a can of worms we had bought!

Plans

Once we finally got through all the paperwork involved in buying our patch of grass and forest, we got started on the designs for our house. We already had the plans of another house in the community where we are going to build but it was a little bit Colombianised for our liking. All the windows looked out onto the road rather than out back to the view and there was a tiny kitchen with the maid´s room and bathroom coming off it, detached from the rest of the house so not to disturb the masters of the house with such mundane things as cooking! We´re not great chefs ourselves but a spacious kitchen is a must and servant quarters is a definate no!

Wanting to fit into the stlyle of the community of white walls and red tile rooves, we made the changes we wanted to the plans and took them along to a nearby architect office to be made up officially.

Disappointed that their first foreign clients didnt want something a bit more.... exotic, and altogether confused about why someone would choose water from the sky over water from the tap, after long discussions we eventually ended up with a design we were all happy with.

The construction is to made of standard materials (sorry earthship guys) because everything from bricks to timber can be sourced right here in Popayan and as we´re right smack bang in the middle of an earthquake zone, building regulations are surprisingly strict by Latin American standards.

With our planning permission approved and all the legalities taken care of, all we had to do next was find a builder!

The perfect spot

Nothing in Colombia is ever straight forward. Least of all buying land.

In general, Colombian people have many endearing qualities. There is always time to stop for a chat, there are very few things in life that require major urgency, there´s always mañana. Another great attribute is their acceptance and tolerance. This has made it a great country to live in, people are very accepting and patient and we will always be greatful for the way we were recieved here with such warmth. To us queue-loving, wrist-watch wearing Brits however, there are always cultural stumbles and misunderstandings as a result of our hesitation to take a more Latin approach to life. Sometimes it pays to keep your wits about you though!

Here in Colombia, it´s surprisingly straight forward to buy land as a foreigner. As we´ve been living here for the past four years and have seen many of our other expat friends buy properties, the paperwork side of things didnt seem too tricky... well, no more tricky than you´d expect. Finding a property that´s ´clean´ as the locals say, referring to it´s financial past, is the tricky bit! We came close to buying three different properties, each time saved just in the nick of time by our lawyer or surveyor or friends doing some digging and spotting some hidden debts attached. A minor detail the laidback sellers neglected to mention.

Eventually we found our perfect spot, a plot with half buildable land, half forest, a nice view (even with Purace volcano poking through the tree tops) and inside a gated community with someone keeping an eye on things should we want to take off travelling for a few weeks. It´s not a huge bit of land, 1030 metres2 but it´s perfect for what we want. Plenty of space for rainwater collection tanks, on a ridge without shade to mess with the solar panels and more than enough room for a veggie plot and some composting.

How did we end up living in Popayan?

We decided to start this blog to share with friends and family our experiences as we get started on our latest project of building an ´off-the-grid´ house, outside of Popayan in Southern Colombia. First things first though, we´d better answer that question that we answer about a hundred times every day, the one that we get everytime we meet a new person in the queue at the bank, or every time a new guest checks into our hostel, or whenever we´re introduced to the friend of a friend....
How did we end up living in Popayan?

Both of us have spent time travelling on and off pretty much since we left secondary school and we have met a lot of interesting people and seen and heard about many interesting projects along the way which I suppose has inspired us to try and live our lives in a way that we find interesting and fulfilling. We are by no stretch of the imagination the hard core, extreme green, hippy types and we enjoy a certain level of comfort in our lifestyle but we do our best to waste little, be respectful of our surroundings and we look forward to the challange of more sustainable living.

In 2006 we decided to launch our own online network for travellers in Latin America and left Scotland with a laptop, camera, some clothes and an idea to connect local hostels and tourism businesses together on the internet. Allowing the local businesses to benefit from online publicity, allowing the travellers access to new and up to date information and allowing us to explore places we might otherwise never have seen, it seemed like a perfect all round scenario!

After nine months on the road we found Popayan, a lovely Colonial town surrounded by mountains and decided to scrape together the money we had left and set up a backpacker hostel to allow us to stick around and watch the tourism develop in this forgotten part of the country. It´s been a great experience learning about a new culture, a language, making new friends and at the same time having a constant flow of interesting, and at times eccentric, personalities from all different nationalities and background passing through our doors. Although running a hostel is a great job, after four years of answering ´how did you end up living in Popayan?´ or ´how often do buses run to San Agustin?´ or ´where´s the nearest ATM?´ about a million times a day, we´re looking forward to breaking the routine a little, reclaiming a bit of our own lives outside of the ´territorio internacional´ of the hostel and throwing ourselves into the building of our first home in the Colombian countryside.