Hausbau in Kolumbien Teil 1

Bananatree Palomino – Epic Journey 2016-2018 Part III

It's great, life on a construction site. Life is a construction site. But now it's about ours in Palomino.

The tent stands near the far right corner of our land. Just behind it rises the three-meter-high water tower with two tons of water on top. Until today, the small-looking concrete column with concrete-iron plate holds the weight.

Next to the tower in the immediate corner is a garden hose suspended from a wire, the shower. Black plastic and a palm weave serve as a privacy screen from the neighbors. The hose can be easily removed and thus also serves as a hand shower, and more importantly, it is used daily on the construction site to wet the cement mix, water all our seedlings, and fill the shower bag. The 30 francs spent 5 years ago on the shower bag has proven to be worth more than any other purchase. At the moment it serves us as a "water tap" in the kitchen.

If you walk three meters from the shower towards the front of the land, you will come across our super-luxury kitchen - a bamboo construction wrapped in black plastic to protect the refrigerator and stove with an integrated oven inside.

The kitchen is complete and could hardly be better. The only thing missing is a storage and cutting table. But we didn't carpenter the worktable in vain. It is big. So big that there is room for the tools as well as the cutting board.

Of course, there is also a small dining table. The top is a 70 by 100 cm tree cross-section (a gift that came with the wood for the second floor), the table leg is a piece of our felled coconut palm, and the supports are found driftwood from the Palomino River, all nicely sanded and painted.

The toilet house seems complete as well as the kitchen. However, only as perceived from the outside. If you go under the dense palm leaf roof, you can see that some things are still missing. The toilet is cemented and usable. The shower, however, is not yet in place. All water pipes have been laid and tested.

By the way, this is a very interesting thing to do for the first time. You cut and glue all the tubes together, turn on the faucet, and are delighted when finally water comes out at all ends.

The partition wall between the toilet and the shower is only halfway up and still needs to be finished. This, too, is very interesting. It is not so easy to set the individual blocks correctly according to the spirit level, as well as laterally horizontally and vertically to the other blocks. Our simple world already has so many dimensions. And on top of that, you have to hurry so that the cement doesn't dry up in front of your nose.

The posts of the cabaña are in place. The 5-meter high tree trunks are incredibly heavy. But thanks to David's ingenuity we get them to stand:

The lower end of the trunk stands on the prepared stone-cement base. A rope is attached to the upper end, which is thrown over a strong branch of the mango and held by a person. Now by pulling the rope and lifting the trunk by about three people, it is brought into the vertical position. Once this is done, three bamboo supports are quickly attached and the trunk is fastened to the base to prevent it from sliding away. It is now more or less stable. The supports are not removed until the beams of the second floor hold the posts together.

This is what it looks like on our construction site. Every day there is more work to do and if you look through the photos, you realize how fast the construction site is changing.

Seraina gestaltet das Badezimmer. — Seraina designs the bathroom.

Armierungseisen für die Sockel der Hauspfosten — Reinforcing iron for the base of the house posts

Werkzeugreparatur à la Palomino — Tool repair à la Palomino

Wenn Seraina eiskalte Limo macht — When Seraina makes ice-cold lemonade

Übermütig + unkonzentriert + Machete = Halbierter Finger — Cocky + unfocused + machete = finger cut in half

Immer wieder zu Gast: Rüdiger — A frequent guest: Rüdiger

Farbenprächtiges Palomino — Colorful Palomino

Jetzt wir im oberen Stock gearbeitet. — Now we are working on the upper floor.

Ananas und Kolibri — Pineapple and hummingbird

Rüdiger, der Leguan — Rüdiger the iguana

Nach 3 Monaten in Palomino sind wir bereit für Urlaub. — After 3 months in Palomino we are ready for vacation.

Für 3 Wochen lassen wir unser neues Häuschen zurück. — For 3 weeks we leave our new house behind.

Update: 28. February 2017

Now as I write these lines, we have finished the shower. It is an improvement on the garden hose, no more muddy feet, and the water well distributed at a comfortable height by the shower. But no question, the garden hose had more style.

The cabaña also looks quite different. The framework is in place, all beams of the second floor and the roof construction are complete. Now only the plank floor of the second floor and the covering of the roof are lacking. When we return from Guatemala, we will work on the kitchen and the furniture. But first, we are going on vacation.

Finally, a few impressions from Palomino: