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🏜️🌿 Volunteer at a Desert Oasis Cave House Near Baza! 🏡🐾

5.0
(2 reviews)2

The experience

Join our 3-generation family in a unique cave house nestled in a desert oasis between Baza & Guadix!
Discover life off the beaten path while helping with a variety of fulfilling and creative projects. There's sustainable farming, hands-on renovations, caring for a donkey, woodland work, something for everyone to contribute and learn. Ready to make unforgettable memories? Come join us & be part of our unique journey in the heart of nature! 🌵

What you offer

25 hours of help per week

Animal Care: Help look after and take care of animals.

Building & Repairing: Help with a wide range of repairs or building.

Farming: Plant crops, sow seeds and help in outside tasks.

What you get

2 days off per week

Shared Dorm: You will have a bed in a shared room, which means you will share the same room with other travelers.

Breakfast: You are entitled to a free breakfast, every day of your stay.

Lunch: You are entitled to a free lunch, every day of your stay.

Dinner: You are entitled to a free dinner, every day of your stay.

Free Laundry: You can use our laundry room freely.

Pick Up: We will pick you up when you arrive, and take you to our property.

Basic Internet Access: Basic speed internet for you to work remotely

Requirements

Intermediate Spanish or Intermediate English

Over 24 years old

Only hosts solo volunteers (doesn’t accept couples or partners)

Travel insurance

What's not included

Flights, Travel Insurance, Internal Transportation and Visa

Program Details

🤝 What We’re Looking For:
Motivated volunteers who love nature, aren’t afraid to get their hands dirty, and want to experience life in a unique and peaceful setting. Skills in farming, DIY, or renovation are a plus but not required!
🌞 What We Offer:
A chance to live in a desert oasis and experience an authentic way of life.
Delicious food, warm hospitality, and shared learning opportunities.
Accommodation with an adventurous twist: use our cozy shared space in an ancient cave house, park up your van or even bring your own tent

We are quite pragmatic and start our day according to daylight and temperatures, e.g. it's dark and cold on winter mornings so it's pointless starting outside work too early, 09.30h is midwinter start time.

However in the summer it can be 40⁰c -45⁰c in the heat of the day, so daybreak 06.00h until 10.30h is all anyone can realistically manage outside.

We provide:
• BREAKFAST, of porridge, toast fruit and hot drinks
• LUNCH, main meal of the day, suitable for vegetarian & vegan life choices only. We don't provide animal flesh.
• SUPPER, a lighter meal, offered on help yourself basis from leftovers from lunch & bocadillos of your choice

• Bed, bedcovers & pillow in curtained areas in old cave chapel.
• Lounge area exclusively for use of volunteers
• Use of bathroom, kitchen & TV lounge shared with family
• hammocks & chill areas
• lifts to town sometimes
• a bit of tourism

Activities & Shift

4-5 hours per day. Starting at a suitable time according to outside temperatures and the season

• Garden, mixed permaculture & a local Arabic techniques
• Woodland management of a "chopera" poplar woodland
• Stabilising steep banks with suitable planting
• Lots of renovation projects using vernacular materials
• Managing and harvesting olives
• Donkey training and walking
• cutting forage for donkey
• Help with dog care, there are 6 dogs, all enjoy a walk now and then,
• Help in the house to maintain cleanliness in volunteer areas
• Help with preparing meals
• Help preserving any surplus from the garden

🌟 What You’ll Do:
🌱 Gardening: Cultivate the food garden and support the olive farm.
🌳 Woodland Care: Regenerate a small woodland and manage landscape erosion.
💧 Irrigation: Assist with water management systems to sustain the land.
🔨 Renovation Projects:
Restore an old almazara (olive mill).
Render cave fronts with lime mortar.
Maintain cave-house roofs and canals.
Help construct a new bathroom for volunteers.
Install a solar water heater for sustainable living.

Rules

This is a NO SMOKING premises and land. It's a dangerous dirty habit that I do not want in our home or around our children

We have rule of no ALCOHOL consumption in the weekdays, and even at weekends, no drinking to drunkenness

Zero tolerance on any recreational DRUGS.

WATER is expensive and scarce. This is a desert area. Short showers, only flush the toilet when it's more than a pee..

SMILE! Engage and communicate. We are here to listen, help and make friends.