The fresh fruit stand changed her life
Mornings in Santa Marta were completely different from what she was used to from Prague or Berlin. They belonged to local fishermen and markets full of fresh fruit. The historic center was filled with vendors with carts loaded with various fruits that don’t even have a name in Europe. On one side was a modern dock with yachts, but just a few kilometers away was the fishing village of Taganga hidden in the bay, where time seemed to stand still.
“I felt freedom in Santa Marta. It’s a city by the sea, similar to, for example, Split in Croatia, but it has the advantage that you can find a job or start a business here. It’s not just a remote village without infrastructure, it has great potential for development,” she describes the place she fell in love with and smiles again.
Although most people say on vacation that they would prefer to stay there, only a few actually do it. I wonder when the turning point actually happened, when she realized that she really wanted to stay in Colombia, even though it would mean starting over several times, this time on another continent.
Soňa does not hesitate for a second and says that she remembers that moment well. It was at a street stall selling fresh fruit. “I once took a taxi from a diving class and stopped in the center at the fruit stalls. I bought some sliced mango, papaya and a coconut. At that moment, with that coconut in my hand, I said to myself that this is where I want to live,” she laughs.
Despite the promising career that awaited her in Berlin, she decided to sell all her belongings, pack her suitcase and leave for Colombia. “I told a colleague at work first, who supported me. Then I called my brother and he told me that if I still can’t find a place in this world, to keep looking. That was the last push I needed.”
She had one suitcase left
She had to make a quick decision because she had a job offer from Copenhagen on her desk. “I quit my job and refused Copenhagen. I had something saved up, I sold things and took the rest to a second-hand store. I only had one suitcase left,” she says.
He admits that the most difficult thing was not to give up the routine life, but to tell his mother, who in the meantime returned home to Slovakia from Qatar and believed that the whole family would finally be together more often.
However, Sonia had a plan. Through social networks, she found a girl in Colombia with whom she arranged to live, at least for the first few weeks, until she finds something of her own. She also connected with the owner of a diving center, who comes from Austria and has lived in Colombia for years.
“Since I loved diving, I decided to develop to a professional level. I wanted to do a divemaster course. This would allow me to travel and work as a professional diver all over the world,” she explains about the plans with which she left for Colombia.
Life is like a soap opera
Soňa amusedly says that since then her life has somewhat resembled a Latin American soap opera. She fell in love with her Colombian instructor who helped her get her scuba diving certificate. “That’s why the course lasted three months instead of one. It was one of the most beautiful periods in my life. He was half-Colombian, his mother is from Germany.”
She finally got the certificate and could finally start accompanying tourists who were looking for professional divers. He still remembers his first job in Colombia. “It was a night dive with a student from Germany. Then we saw the plankton beautifully, everything under the surface was glowing. We enjoyed it so much that instead of the usual 45 minutes, we were under water for over an hour. The captains on the ship were already worried about us, whether we were okay and whether something had happened to us.”
Months passed and Soňa was no longer going home. She felt that she had finally found the place to live that she had been looking for for so long. Every day inat the diving center, she checked dozens of oxygen bottles and prepared wetsuits, in the evening she washed the equipment from salt, filled the bottles with compressed air with a high-pressure compressor and planned the dives for the next day.
The waters of the Caribbean, through which she accompanied tourists, were no longer mysterious and unexplored. They became familiar to her. She knew every reef and every current below the surface. While the boat headed to the place where they were to dive, she explained the safety rules to the tourists and showed them the signals they would use to “talk” underwater.
They chose the wrong place
While diving, she observed not only the beauty of corals and colorful shoals of fish, but especially the air supply. Day after day, she guided a group of divers through the labyrinth of underwater rocks so that no one would get lost and everyone would see what they came for. From tiny seahorses to majestic rays.
When she gained enough experience, she decided to take the next step. Newly in love, he and his friend decided to open their own center. They saw this as a good opportunity because tourists were constantly increasing, even though the competition was strong. There were about 35 diving centers in Santa Marta alone.
“Both of us were inexperienced in business and we went headlong into it. We invested in a boat and equipment, for which we traveled all over Colombia to the city of Cali. The beginnings were difficult. First, we opened a center in one city where there was no competition,” he describes the beginnings of business on the other side of the world.
They quickly understood why they had no competition. The conditions were not ideal at all. They had to push the boat because the river often dried up or the currents were too strong. Problems piled up and Soňa and her partner were unable to offer the tourists who had paid for diving why they had come. They decided to return to Santa Marta and start competing in an oversaturated market.
“And then the pandemic came. There was a quarantine for the whole year, so we had to close. As the measures were relaxed, we started building the center again. At first, we operated as a so-called mobile diving center. We bought an old ambulance in which we transported all the equipment,” the second attempt approaches.
However, this was not exactly convenient for the divers, because they had nowhere to change and there was no toilet available. Soňa and her boyfriend had to rent the space where they opened the center. At that time, she was already pregnant and went below the surface less and less. She quickly realized that if they wanted to compete with more than three dozen diving centers, they had to differentiate themselves.
Eternal tourist
He claims that in today’s age of constant pressure from advertisements and social networks, time spent underwater is a rare moment. “We bought a more comfortable boat and we only do dives in small groups. I saw how stressed people from big cities emerge after an hour under water with a different, calmer expression on their faces, and I wanted to build on that,” explains Soňa, how her business concept was born.
“I’m worried about the next generation growing up on phones, and that’s why I’m drawn more and more to work with children,” he admits. For the past four years, she has been running the center herself and thus began to devote herself to various projects. Many companies clean beaches, and she wanted to start doing something similar, as the sea is full of garbage brought by the river.
“I was inspired to do this by my four-year-old son Lukas. I sponsor a children’s soccer team in the Taganga area, we have 30 children in it. We go to collect garbage with them, but at the same time we educate them, we make a movie for them and various activities about the protection of the sea,” explains Soňa about the center’s activities.
She is also involved publicly, as, according to her, Santa Marta has a huge problem with infrastructure. There are no garbage trucks, containers, and there is a lot of corruption involved. “I made videos to draw the authorities’ attention to this problem, because sometimes the city seems completely abandoned and neglected,” she explains determinedly.
However, she admits that she will still be just a tourist for the locals, which is to blame for her pale skin. She smiles that they try it on her, especially in the markets, when they give her higher prices than the locals. “There are neighborhoods that I avoid. One must not, as they say here, ‘give papaya’, that is, an opportunity for thieves by being somewhere with an expensive phone. But Lukas and I usually go out in the evening, on a bike or skate, and we feel safe,” he says.
He no longer has a home in Slovakia
She says that the slogan of her center is “Consume less, breathe more”. And that’s what he tries to teach his clients who come to dive. It’s not just an experience below the surface, but also a lifestyle, or even a philosophy.
“We chase money to buy things we don’t need. I also used to have a lot of shoes and handbags. Today, I profess simplicity in my diet and in life. Fruits, vegetables, eggs are enough for me. I don’t need dozens of versions of the same product,” she says.
Colombia really taught her that less is more. He says that people in this place have fewer worries and are happier because they live in the present. These are the things that she misses very much in her native country.
“When I come to Slovakia to visit my family, I feel stress. Everyone is rushing somewhere, shopping, chasing money to pay off the mortgage and lease. The main thing is that you have more than your neighbors,” says Soňa sadly, who returns to Nové Zámky with her son only for a “vacation”, just as she returned with her mother from Dubai years ago.
Lukas always looks forward to flying to see his Slovak family and when he can travel by train. In addition to Spanish, which is his native language, he also speaks Slovak. However, Soňa admits that she does not miss this life at all.
“A few months ago, I shaved my head because I wanted to. In Slovakia, they would immediately ask me why I did it. Here I throw on a summer dress and flip flops and don’t care. Shaving my head was not rebellion, but a return to simplicity, to the feeling of freedom when one stops conforming to standards,” laughs Soňa, when we say goodbye after an hour long long-distance conversation.
Finally, I ask Sona what fascinates her so much about diving, because she was born in an inland country and the nearest sea is hundreds of kilometers away from Nové Zámky. It’s just morning in Santa Maria, and another group of tourists is waiting for her, to whom she will show the world below the surface of the Caribbean. Maybe thanks to her, some will also experience “blue mind”.
“It’s absolutely relaxing,” he replies, and he and Lukas nod to the camera. “You can’t do anything underwater but breathe and observe the beauty.”
