The art of giving

So our trip took a dramatic shift in style as we decided to cross 14 miles of ocean and enter a different world.  Morocco is the most diverse, dramatic and intense country I have spent time in. Do not go to Morocco for peace and calm, go for adventure and to be bombarded by experience because it  touches every sense and leaves you feeling like a child; slightly vunerable but open and excited by all that is new.

In 4 weeks and without speaking the language you can only catch a glimpse of understanding of a culture and country; this is some of what I felt.

It seemed to me that in Morocco family and community life was geared more towards collectivism as appose to individualism and this applied equally to strangers. We found in many of the people an incredible warmth and hospitality that I hope to return to any wayward travellers who stumble into my future.  We were welcomed into homes and lives, sharing sometimes intimately with customs, traditions and daily life. On the second day we arrived, we were taken to a wedding, treated like one of the family, and as is tradition danced and ate all night, whilst  the bride, who  changed into 7 incredible beautiful dresses throughout the night ,  was lifted on a throne; the goddess for an evening, above the drummers and dancers below. hee hee was a little more lively then your  average british wedding. (who needs alcohol to let go eh)

In contrast to this we also stayed with a family mourning the death of a recent family member.  The hospitality they showed two strangers as well as sharing openly with us their sadness but acceptance was incredibly moving. This plus many other encounters along the way made me and becky feel strongly the importance of love and friendship. That relationships really are the priority of life and that perhaps if we relearnt to focus more strongly on this then everything else we desire will follow.

Cob

Cobbing is amazing….sculpting a house with raw earth…no cement, no preset  form, no ramming or machines just, soil, water, clay, sand and straw.

Straw is to cob what metal is to cement. That makes me happy (see cobbing geek below) 

A really good book that makes it all seem easy is “The cob builders handbook”  by Becky Bee

A more detailed one is ´¨The hand sculpted house” by Evans, smith and Smiley. Ianto Evans also wrote a really good book on rocket stoves.

Becky in the cob bath

cupboard walls

The wild

It seemed natural from the start, without discussing, that when biking we would wildcamp;  simply sleep where we found ourselves when darkness drew in. This pattern quickly became normality so that the option of staying in a hostel didn´t really seem an option to us!

In this way without intending it, we removed ourselves slightly from the normality of modern society and moved one step closer to be able to imagine being ´wild´ (although still housed head to toe in gortex ;P  )

This was easy in the countryside.  When in need the universe really does seem to provide and we greeted each patch of trees with appreciation. Being stuck however in a city or town at twilight seemed pretty daunting. There are so few places to go! There were moments scrambling into bushes on roadsides, discovering abandoned houses and passing bikes over fences, when police or even just people would pass. We´d have to pretend to be fixing wheels or taking a nonchelent drink with adrenlin pumping incase we´d be caught!

Suddenly the rules that we accept seemed so crazy.  That the basic right to simply pass the night in peace on the land is illegal unless its paid for.

I believe we need to fight for this right of access to land. There was the CROW act passed in England and wales  in 2000  http://www.opsi.gov.uk/acts/acts2000/ukpga_20000037_en_1  improved things but there is such a long way to go.

It also made me see that every built up area needs wild spaces. Land without fences, without trails, parking lots or a management plan.

Biking impressions so far

The first thing I should share is that Spain is cold in winter, so if you venture here in search of winter sun be careful where you choose to be!

We arrived in the frosty north after an incredible ferry ride (much more absorbing then flying plus it gives you a greater sense of how vast our oceans are)

We borded a train to Vallodolid about 350 km further south and then with a little nervous anticipation of the unknown before us, set off on our bikes. I think we  only cycled about 20km on our first day! It was beautifully warm and sunny and as we happended upon a pine forest reserve we couldn’t resist taking the trails rather then the road (the mountain biker in me perhaps!) The trails in places were icecovered sand, not the perfect terrain for a pannier ladened bike, but incredibly beautiful and with a magic that comes from exploring in forest with species quite different from those you already know. These pines looked like green jellyfish floating in the sky (thats a childlike impression… no drugs required)   

Our map was far too big a scale to be of any use so used the position of the sun as our guide and went off trail in the general direction  we wanted.  We surprisingly emerged where we wanted but decided to venture back in to camp for the night.

It was a beautiful sunset, but as soon as the sun dipped below the horizen the temperature plummeted and we were huddled in sleeping bags at 6.30pm rising 14 hours later to a frozen landscape.

So we continued on cycling in thick mist with frozen hair and eyelashes, wearing everything we brought with us and spending long cold nights in our tent or in one instance an outdoor bunker, snuggling together.  Everywhere we stopped we were greeting with friendly intrigue and help. Water stops often resulted in being invited in for food, or biscuits or wine at 10am!  A  little while later and a lift over the mountain pass from an incredibly generous warm showers host we arrived south of Caceres for christmas in a much milder climate!  Phew!

With the warth we could relax and reflect on our experience so far. It was interesting to see how in moments of cold and hunger some of our ecological morals, didn´t go out of the window exactly but definitely got put on the back of the shelf for a while. The supermarkets we so avidly tried to avoid in the UK were when we felt weak and hungry greated like angel stores sent from the wild heavens to sustain us! Organic food less easy to obtain here was missed but not consumed.  We had planned to forage for wild food, but in the frost in a country you don´t know biking in areas without wildnerness this is less of a realistic option. So yes it is easier to live by ethics when warm and fed but far harder when frozen with a rumbling belly.

So with food we struggled. It made me feel even more strongly how important wilderness is.  How important trees are. Not only for food but for all our needs . Every evening as dusk approached we would start scanning the horizen for the patch of trees in which we would spend the night. We depended on this almost entirely. They sheltered us, hid us in safetly and kept us warm. I have never felt so much before a creature of the trees!!

Bioethanol. One reality.

The great thing about cycling without a plan, pre knowledge or a decent map is you pass through landscapes you never expected and observe them with fresh eyes.

So it happened that cycling across the North West interior of Spain, what was pine forest gradually became agriculture, firstly small fields later develping into a monoculture of corn as far as the eye could see.

As we cycled on we noticed rivers running dry, pretty strange for the winter. Ditches lined the fields filled with stagnant irrigation water murky with topsoil and there were few hedges or thickets to give wildlife a chance to hang on. All this information gently trickles in leaving the feeling that this is a landscape almost entirely owned and exploited by man. It leaves the feeling this is deeply wrong.

As we reached Bibliofuente this use of this land became clear. A bioethanol plant sparkled silver in the sea of corn, burning food for fuel and bellowing cloud into the sky.

Biofuels which could be such a positive development when using a waste product on a small scale, empowering communities to be able to provide their own fuel, has of course  been taken a used in the most illogical of ways, high imput, high impact, largescale.

Round the corner, was a new park and reserve, complete with artistic representations of nature, stone circles and a layout design for new leisure apartments on the river front. The social project perhaps to ‘make up´ for the transformation of a landscape, ecology and lives of a people.

Its hard to know passing through a brief observer, how the local people feel about it all. Of what rationality decided that it was ok to sacrafice a huge swath of land to be a cornfield factory as long as you leave one small patch to express our reverence of nature.

Hello world!

Hello and welcome

This is a story of my travels. Its also an exploration of life and lifestyles, of the choices we may be fortunate enough to create and how to find, amongst the expectation of society, the cloak of media and the lure of money which way to go.  

At the moment I´m biking through spain with my friend Becky, we´re wildcamping and couch surfing on our way to visit ecological projects and communities. As well as the adventure that comes from exploring in a culture and environment different from your own, I´m hoping to gain insight into how to live more in balance with myself, society and nature. To try and live a natural peaceful life in a society whose infrastructure, ethics and customs seem so far from this.

Please share your ideas and thoughts

love xxx