Within 24 h I received two interesting messages from Germany. My friend Lukas, who I know since I am 15 years old and I don’t see him very often lately. Apparently we do different things and are in different countries, we are well connected by our common interests on this plane. Well, Lukas invited me to a yoga festival in south Germany and I had to tell him right away that I would not plan to go to Germany soon. One day later I received another message but from Anke, who is running a event agency. The mail she had sent me was about a super interesting job. They were looking for promoter to promote a surfboard going from Monaco to Barcelona and then Mallorca. Wow, this really caught my interest and I started to think. Going to Germany for the summer, on a yoga festival, see my friends and then work in France and Spain and earn some money. YES! Right away I applied for the job and also booked a flight to Frankfurt. Even the price for the flight was perfect. So I considered even without the positive answer from the agency, to travel to Germany and work something else.
Man that was an incredbily quick change and it felt really good. One day later I recieved a positive answer from Anke and of course I was super happy. Then I was starting to prepare myself mentally going back to Germany and so on...
Till the day after the sweatlodge in Peru (further information about SWEAT LODGE CEREMONIES will be posted someday). I got up in the morning and checked my messages and there it was....
“We are sorry but we can’t employ you for the job as we have massive delivery problems with some important parts!“
„What?“ was my first response and they were serious. They had looked for people without even knowing that their product is ready to be released?!
Silence. Ok. No income when I am going back to Germany.
It took me two days to apply for all sorts of jobs that are available at the moment and that I would like to do. Ideally I would like to work hard and earn good. Doing clinical tests maybe? Work at the Octoberfest? Work in some factory? Work as onboard kurrier? Not really, clinical tests are well paid but risky, the octoberfest is full of drunk people, factory work wouldn’t be to bad?! Onboard kurrier is only every once a while...
Ah...and there was ZALP, working in the alps as herd man and making cheese. Yes that is what I am going to do. Ideally would be in Switzerland. Incredible pay and easy going people. After I had written 30 emails the first responded. A few had already helpers, one from Austria offered me the position right away and another guy from the french speaking part offered me a good position as well. Wow, again that was a quick change. What to do, where to go? Finally I agreed with Tony from Mattwald to be his herd man for 300 sheep. He had sent me pictures of his ALP at an altitute of 2200 m and I loved it. Just before going on a 3 day tour in the salt desert of Uyuni (Salar de Uyuni) and a following trip to San Pedro de Atacama, Chile, I called him in Switzerland and everything seemed to fit perfectly. Time. Pay. Job. Location.
So I thought it would be enough to send him all the details after our trip. As I didn’t want to work everything out right away. Well, till roughly 48 h later he cancelled the job via email, because I didn’t respond and the Alp community wanted a decision right away and couldn't wait. So what did they do. They just took someone else. I didn't believe it and therefore I had rejected three other jobs!? Fuck that!
In the middle of the Andean high plateau in 4400 m I was reading the email from Tony and of course I was pissed. But what I didn’t know at this point. The previous surfboard job that actually started everything came back to me. Like a boomerang. Right after I had read Tonys mail I read a unexpected mail from the agency saying that they consider hiring me for a smaller tour but the same dates. The final positive answer I received the next day sitting with Tina in Chile while we were having a overpriced coffee.
Yes and Puh!!!
All this hustle for what and what did I learn from this?
P.s. Andes/ salt desert/ high up/ mountain/ volcano/ flamingo...will be posted soon! ...with pictures!