To celebrate International Women’s Day, I want to tell you about Dani Gasior, the woman who escaped London to build a Hostel in the Colombian Jungle. 

It was in a town called Buritaca, located on the North Coast of Colombia, in 2019 when I first met Dani. My friend and I were in her house, waiting for our moto-taxis to take us to nearby Tyrona National Park, when she told us she wanted to build a hostel, from scratch, in the middle of the jungle. 

I was shocked and had only just met her at this point, it was a memorable first impression! We had an abundance of questions, wondering if she knew what a colossal task it was, one person being quite sceptical, but she was adamant. Two years, one pandemic and hours of hard work later, she has nearly finished. 

The decision to build the hostel was a bold one and it certainly was not a spur of the moment. A few years ago, Dani spent a year travelling South America, spending more than half of the time on the north coast of Colombia, when she fell in love with the area. Living in London left her feeling unhappy – “The more I saw the world, the more I wanted to be a part of it. It became clear I would never return home for good; I was so happy when I was out and became really down when I was home for too long. I no longer wanted to be part of a system that convinces you to work all your life, in order to afford the life they want you to you live.”

Anyone who loves travelling can relate to what Dani said next – “My travels showed me a second dimension to our planet. The beauty of the simple life. I realised it was possible for me to organise my life in a way, in which every day I could breathe fresh air, listen to birds sing and swim in the ocean whenever I wanted: I realised I could be happy and free. The idea of building a hostel was to share that feeling of freedom with others.”

Throughout the project she has overcome an array of hurdles, mostly gender related. She spoke of how being a girl boss brought its own set of challenges, explaining how local men disbelieved in her capacity to realise the project, as a female led mission. Sometimes, being dismissed in conversation and presumed not knowledgeable in construction “If you are with a man who has nothing to do with the project, he will still be spoken to even after I have spoken first.” Later adding, “it is uncommon for women to build here”.

Women are viewed as weak in Colombia which was amplified when she told me how one of her former workers sent someone with a machete to burgle the property. The burglary only took place as word got out there were no men on the land that night, thankfully the robbery was unsuccessful. 

Aside from gender, cultural differences have been another challenge to overcome “it takes practice and finesse to understand these differences and adjust accordingly.” And finally, learning how to build a fully functioning property, from plumbing to carpentry to engineering, everything she didn’t know, she has had to learn. “Every day there is a new challenge to overcome, some are harder than others – the greater the challenge, the bigger the achievement so I am glad it is not only fun and games.”

The name of the hostel is not yet finalised, currently, it’s called The Fort Hostel, although she might change this to La Fortaleza Colombia, to market towards Colombians as well as foreigners. Regardless of who is staying, she wants her guests to feel at home. “I would like travellers to feel as though they are guests in my crazy, beautiful, jungle home, that they can stay and recuperate, heal or just enjoy being comfortable in the wild. The hostel itself is built using Colombian wood, no trees were cut down to build the property and everything is powered by solar panels – the place is off grid.

The property consists of two cabins, one completed six bed Cabin and a nearly finished ten bed cabin. She began construction on the large ten bed, to start with she occasionally hired external contractors, but soon realised the work was not up to her standards. “Half way through the first cabin, I decided to start fresh on the smaller one. The quality of work sky rocketed. My two right hand guys and I, (who have been with me, learning and experimenting since the beginning) have moved back onto the first large cabin, I have learnt so much constructing the small cabin, I feel confident to make even more out of the large one than I could at the beginning.”

The small cabin, with six beds is available to be booked next month from 1st April 2021, the large cabin with ten beds will be available by the end of 2021, booking will be on Airbnb, under the name ‘La Casa de Moncoro.’

For now, her main focus is to get the second large cabin completed to start making income, and renovate an old house that came with the land into a shop, where she’ll sell home grown food and other things guests may need during their stay. 

Those who are staying can visit art installations that are dotted around the two-hectare property, go on cacao tours, and coffee tours. As well as offering the typical experiences like tubing and other water sports, Dani plans to offer more wholesome activities such as macrame classes, local community craft workshops and language lessons. The location of the hostel being between Tyrona National Park, the beach and small-town Palomino itself is enough to keep guests busy. “I am not too far from the Caribbean Sea and there are plenty of rivers and waterfalls around to explore”.

While interviewing Dani, reflecting on how far she’s come since starting the project, she recalls times of when local men came and saw what has been accomplished. “Every single one of them raises their eyebrows and compliments me excessively on what they see. This is the feeling that is worth the most to me. In that moment it becomes clear that I changed the minds of those men about what they thought I, as a foreign woman, could accomplish. I still have so much left to do but to change the minds of the people that doubted me is the greatest feeling of achievement.”

I loved catching up with Dani after two years. Although I’ve been following her progress on social media, interviewing her about her remarkable work and challenges she’s overcome is impressive to say the least. Her tenacity shines through and is nothing short of admirable. If you are looking for inspiration on this International Women’s Day, then look no further. Follow Dani’s progress on Instagram @thefortcolombia.

The post Meet The Londoner Who Built A Hostel In The Colombian Jungle appeared first on Gone Travelling.