Beyond the code: mushrooms, paragliding, and Santa Elena

There's a question I get a lot in interviews and intro calls: what do you do outside of work? The short answer is: a lot. The long answer is this.

Santa Elena

I live in Santa Elena, a mountain village on the outskirts of Medellín. At 2,400 meters above sea level, with fog almost year-round, flower farms, and a pace of life that has nothing to do with the city 20 minutes downhill.

I chose to live here because I needed space — physical and mental — to build the things that matter to me. The mountain gives you that.

Songosorhongo

In 2022 I started growing mushrooms. What began as curiosity — how hard can it be? — turned into a real project: Songosorhongo, a mushroom-based cooking initiative focused on functional and edible varieties.

We grow fresh oyster mushrooms. We sell them, cook with them, and slowly build a language around mushrooms as food and as metaphor. The mycelium as the network that holds everything together — that idea follows me around.

What I love most about the project isn't the product. It's what it has in common with software development: you start with something small, tend to it with method, and eventually it grows on its own.

Paragliding

I've been flying paragliders for a few years now. Not professionally — I'm a recreational pilot — but seriously enough that it's become a consistent practice.

Flying changes the way you see the problem of being in the world. When you're in the air, over the mountains of Antioquia, there's a particular clarity. No Slack, no PRs, no backlog. Just the wind, the wing, and the decision of where to go.

It's the best reset I know.

Why I'm telling you this

I'm not just my technical stack. I'm also the person who grows mushrooms before standup, who flies on weekends, who lives in the fog.

When we work together, that's also on the table. The curiosity, the patience with slow processes, the tolerance for uncertainty — all of those things are learned in places that aren't offices.