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So, lost another post to the trials of Ecto. You see I have sort of a love hate relationship with Ecto. Anyway, not much lost just my moaning mum stuff as 2 of my kids fly the nest in the same week.
The night before the flight to London the nearby river overflowed and took the path of least resistance down the road in front of the mechanics. In the middle of the night people were climbing over the wall and tow ropes were hauling cars in from the road as the river took over. In the morning what was left was some destroyed fish carts littering the street and sludge everywhere. We put on our welly boots, Sam took our boots back in a bucket as we jumped in our… taxi.
Lizzy is taking off to Texas to hang with Jessica, our amazing, wonderful Woman friend (notice the capital “W” for woman which I reserve for only my favourite women in the world) who we love.
 This is a photo of our first leg of the journey. Lizzy’s first hitchhiking experience. Actually we were waiting for a taxi to the airport and some of our friends saw us and gave us a ride in their big blue horsebox.
The rest of her trip was a bit more normal with planes and trains. Well, maybe not that orthodox as we flew ryan air to London. Every time we fly ryan air we say NEVER AGAIN but we always get drawn in by the illusion of cheap prices. We did get free entertainment on the plane this time. With a handful of drunks, an angry primadonna with a huge carryon and a man with a lost boarding card.
Sam, Donald and Alana took off for Scotland. The only drama we heard this time came from Alana. Dear Alana, Andrew drilled and drilled them in the taxi on the way but her carefree attitude, optimism and lack of extensive funds were no match for the near impossible border control in london and she was denied entry. She is now in a detainment centre in London – Ramada with bars – waiting for the next flight to Morocco in 2 days. Not sure if she will continue on with us or what. So, this time our clan got to provide the drama. Ahhh life.
Miracle of miracles Sam and Donald got in. I guess they had to let Donald in because he holds a british passport. Samuel, however, well, he did try. He put on all clean, all black, clothes that promptly got really dirty as we are presently living in a mechanics backyard. You see, miracles do happen in the modern day.
I AM feeling much better. Glad you missed my empty nest moan and groan. It was very sad and I am sure would have brought you all to tears.
Now we are all thinking, North or South. Do we continue south towards the Sahara or do we high tail it North. Hmmmmm, you know we do have sandmats proudly displayed at the back of our truck. We also have a large group of new friends gathering in Sidilfni preparing for Mauritania and beyond. There are visas to get and a carnet to figure out if we go further south.
The Mauritania visa is near impossible to get in U.K. Once you go to the Mauritanian Embassy, London website that has no clue to the Embassy’s closure until you take the long trek and knock on the stranger’s door where the embassy is supposed to be. If you probe deeper online they say to go to the French embassy where they say send in lots of paper and wait 4 months and they might say yes. Seems the thing to do is go to Rabat, Morocco and you get it in 5 hours. You know, you try to set things in order before you get on the road but I think it takes a leap of faith. Jump on out there and the answers come along the way. Oh no, there I go again with one of my rants. STOP ME PLEASE!
You know alot adds up if I havent blogged for a while.
Enough for today.
We have been waiting until we got to Africa to open up our roof so that we can sleep on top. Its been a little cramped with 9 people living in this truck and the roof top area will greatly increase the square footage by about two thirds. And not having air conditioning means that any ventilation we can find will make life much more comfortable in hot climates.
And the fully collapsible roof space will give us plenty more space for everyone to sleep. We are putting some rails on the roof so people dont fall off. We can also tie some spare wheels and stuff on the roof if we need to..
We are also getting some rust removed from the truck and some things that fell off are getting wielded back on. While the work is being done, the mechanic is letting us stay in this little shanty, along with some other travellers and young hippies who are camping out with us. It doesn’t leak very much at all – just in a few places but nothing that some strategically positioned saucepans dont take care of. The place is buzzing with people. New travellers turn up each day. Yesterday a group of Lithuanians walking across Africa turned up and we all ate together. Very cool.
Whilst staying At the mechaniques we found a patiserie across the street that sold fantastic avocado milk shakes, here is the rough recipe,
1 avocado take the pit out and skin off
1 table spoon of sugar
about 4 almonds
milk (not quite sure how much but roughly as much as you need to fill your cup)
And blend it all up
Here is the place.
After all our fears of bad health in Africa and we have been doing OK. We have all been taking turns with stomach aches and diarrhea but not to serious. We ar’e in banana beach so eating alot of bananas helps out. Skin problems. Abi got a bad burn on her hand before we arrived in Morocco so we were very careful to keep it clean. A Moroccan man kept putting flower pollen goop on it which was greaas well.
The problem I am having is with people outside our family. We are hanging around alot of full time travellers. European young people mostly. What great people, loving and giving. They are not living out hedonist dreams but wanderlust mixed in with missions of global peace. Quite beautiful. They love natural medicine. They live simply and are normally broke.
However, here is the problem. Youve got this young man who has walked his feet bloody because of bad shoes or no shoes. He pees on his foot faithfully every morning to disinfect it, I have heard this is actually quite good. The problem is that he continues to walk around barefoot with an open wound and soak it in water full of special south Moroccan bacteria. Staph infection. He gives his infection to 10 others. They are all at least a 4 hour walk from a doctor.
So, where do you go when your foot swells up like a football? Mom. Since I have grey hair and alot of kids they come to me. I actually love helping people out with this. Hey, isnt this why I went to nursing school?
In the short time I have been here I have seen some of the worst wounds of my life. I know my first aid kit is fine for a family but is sorely inadequate for this many people with bad infections. I have already given away my emergency antibiotics to a wonderful french father with an old burn that was causing his whole leg to swell up and no money for medicine. I gave him the antibiotics and asked him to take them to the pharmacist to see if they were right for the job. The pharmacist said they were the best for his infection and are not available in Morocco. He is very grateful and getting better but I now have no antibiotics.
Helping out all these people with infected wounds is actually a bit selfish too. Staph infections spread to other travellers and to my family. Aggressive little bacteria that can jump into a little mosquito bite on a leg and cause a disfiguring scar or amputation.
Sorry for my rant. I was trained as a nurse so I can help with early problems but people are coming to me too late, way too late, when amputation is on the tip of their tongues. I feel quite ill prepared for this. Is there a place for extra training and alot of supplies? Do I need extra training or just more confidence? I dunno.
I feel better. Thanks for listening.
Sorry, no pictures with this post. Honestly now, would you want pictures!?!?
Ahhh. Africa. We love Africa. What to say where to start. We are in love. Even in the first day we felt overwhelmed and could fill a book with what we saw and felt. I will try to just show you some highlights of our outside journey and later the journey of our hearts is sure to come out.
After gazing out at Africa from different points in Spain we finally decided to take the plunge and go. When I was writing an email to my sister I realized that after so looking forward to going to Morocco I was kinda afraid. Silly really. Fear of the unknown I suppose. Terribly embarrassing for someone travelling full time to admit but there you go. I think it is one thing to talk about going to Africa for the first time, overland, with a truck full of children and teenagers. It is completely another thing to get on the ferry. So we got enough money in our account to book our ferry, with a little extra for petrol and food. Went to exit 112, found Carlos and bought our half price ferry tickets. While we were at the Lidl parking lot for the night, with the other motorhomes, who saw Carlos and were waiting to go to Morocco, we decided to head towards Paradise Valley. We have heard from many sources that Tangier is not the best place to hang around in so Paradise Valley was a good target.
The whole motorhome stampede to get onto the ferry was a far cry from the ferry trips we have had across the channel and to Orkney. It was actually quite funny. These little old men, some quite frail, behind the wheel of their “white plastics”, aggressively shoving into line ahead of another old man in his white plastic. Barely escaping bumping into each other.
We were so excited when we made it to Morocco but then had to wait in line for many more hours to be allowed in. The whole process took us 11 hours. Welcome to Africa? Or, welcome to the white plastic parade.
Actually the “welcome to Africa” came when we were getting off the ferry. Normally when we cross a border Andrew hands the person our wad of passports and the border official seems somewhere between overwhelmed and shocked. Here, when Andrew handed the wad of passports to the official the man looked up with a huge smile with all the other muslim men around. As they saw all the kids and teenagers they were ecstatic, commenting on Andrew’s extreme manhood, having so many kids. lots of energetic verbal and hand gestures. Andrew says, I think I’m going to like Africa.
While we were waiting in line at customs we made many friends. Seems like there is this brotherhood of self-builds and full-time travellers. We met a polish/french family in a semi-converted blue horsebox. We also met a dutch man with a self-conversion, it is sort of a caravan on the back of a mercedes van cab full of 9 hippies at the border. They were dancing around the other vehicles and singing and flute playing at the border. They were going to Paradise Valley too. They were going to a rainbow gathering there.
Perfect, we made ourself a convoy. We didnt know about the Rainbow Gathering there before but going to our first Rainbow is one of our goals for this year as we have so many friends that have been and have almost gone so many times ourselves.
We had a great time along the way. We learned about living on the road, raw food, african culture.
On one of our stops along the way Abi and Rachel went out to sit outside. Rachel (from the Hippievan) is a British anthropologist and speaks French, Arabic and Berber. Rachel was kind enough to translate Abi’s first 2 marriage proposals of the day.
 A little later we stopped at a ladies cooperative that made argan oil. What a great experience! Apparently the oil is quite sought after for cooking tagines and skin care. The Argan oil comes from a tree that is similar to the olive tree but only grows in this valley. We got to have a go at grinding the oil and met some wonderfully friendly ladies. We were invited to move in with the berber woman on the left. This is also where Abi got her third marriage proposal of the morning.
I really, really like the berber people. I really, really like the villages here.
 We also enjoyed the mint tea along the way. We were taught how to pour a proper mint tea. Donald is demonstrating here. You have the mint leaves and green tea and too much sugar in the pot. Pour the contents of the pot into the glasses from various heights. Pour the tea back into the cups. Repeat 3 times. Mmmmm. This is what they are drinking everywhere. Actually, the streets are lined with men leisurely drinking mint tea while their wives are…. where are the wives… I think they are home cooking or at the “Hamam”.
The Hamam. Now, I dont have any pictures of the Hamam seeing that it is a Bath house. It is where the women go in one side and the men the other. You walk into a room of mostly naked people with buckets of water and scrub each others backs with black soap and a scratchy mit. After your hamam the men go for a cup of mint tea and the women go…. I guess home. I know it sounds quite bizarre but we had a great time. The girls loved it. I really enjoyed being in this friendly all woman environment. When me and the girls came out of the hamam there was Andrew waiting across the street… with his mint tea.
Anyways, when we got to Paradise Valley, on the night of the full moon, the energetic teenagers left for the Rainbow gathering that night to walk by moonlight but us more sensible ones stayed at Mohammed’s for a night and walked the next morning.
We rented a couple of donkeys to help with some of the bags.
 It was supposed to take us 2 1/2 hours but having small children it took us about 4 hours and we arrived right before dark. It was actually a stunning walk full of old villages, waterfalls, colourful people and goats.
When we got to the rainbow gathering there were about 50 people in a valley that is – well – it IS called paradise valley. We think it was well named.
Andrew is having a great time. There are interesting truck/homes wild camping everywhere. This particular group was mostly german and dutch.
So where are we now? After talking to Mohammed and a few of the other people there for the night we decided to go to Aourir. It is next to Agadir. We found Hassan and are staying with the other full-time travellers, mostly french, in the parking lot while we get work done on our trucks. We have a huge list of things to get done. They have already rebuilt our muffler and are working on opening our roof. It was part of the original plans for our truck before we got it and the truck has been leaking where the two pieces of the roof overlap. We couldn’t afford to get it done in Europe and the work here is really good, fast and cheap. Add to that to be able to be with some great people as the work is being done.
We went to Agadir one day to the Souk (Market). Wont be making that mistake again. Way too touristy and touristy here means you get hassled alot. We really like the villages so much more.
Oh yeah, language-wise. If you hang out in the cities French is great, villages Arabic is better, really rural they only speak Berber.
Anyways, hope you are feeling a bit more caught up. Sorry, havent shared some of our more heart experiences but, to be perfectly honest we are still processing.
Yesterday was Lizzy’s 17 birthday. Wow, my little girl. So big. You know she checked our heights this week and she is officially taller than me. Yup! I must be shrinking. I am just so happy with the woman she is becoming. I am excited that she is so beautiful on the inside as well as the outside. I am excited that the child inside her is still alive. I love the things that make her Lizzy. Her determination to do her best. You know, she took up the saxophone this year. She practices at least an hour a day. She sounds so great now. She has so many dreams. So many creative dreams. When she was a little girl she taught me to see beauty. I hope she will find a way to share this gift. She will probably be going to stay with Jessica in Austin, Texas in just a couple of months. She will be gone until June. What a difficult stage to be a mum. If you do your job well, your children fly off to follow their dreams. Hmmmmm.
OK enough of that, you old sob story of a mum. I get way too sappy at 4 am.
Here was our day.
We started off with a sweetie from one of the many sweetie stalls on the road. Abi especially liked this lady because of all the pink.
Me and Lizzy and Abi went into Tarifa and went to some cafes. Partly because we wanted tea or juice. Partly because we enjoyed talking and dreaming. Partly because we couldnt figure out when siesta would be.
Dang, they have a long siesta. It goes from 1-5:30 here.
Another coffee shop.
Andrew made a great BBQ complete with ribs and smores. I’m not quite sure why Sam is glowing here. Could be all that rapid movement.
 Elizabeth created a birthday hat from the broken base of our mini globe and is sporting her new shades. She likes them because they remind her of the goggles she wore in science class.
Abi made a great birthday cake (14 carrot cake) in our flat-pack coleman camp oven (thanks Mercy for the oven).
Happy Birthday Lizzy.
Just met another amazing retired couple. This couple is German. I am starting to see more and more of these amazing older couples that I cant help but admire. There are some couples that buy their “white plastic” for part-time fun and keep their “bricks and mortar” to come back to. There is this complete other breed, however, that demands respect.
One of the first couples I met recently that I would put into this category would be a couple I met in the South of England. He came up to our truck at a “Camping and Caravanning Club” Site at an old Nursery. He knocked on my door, introduced himself and said
“We are terminal”.
“Excuse me? What was that?”
“I have terminal cancer. I am travelling with an old friend from school. She has emphysema. She is terminal too. We were told to wait around in some old home. Wait to die. We thought this would be better. We cant leave UK because of insurance. We need electricity for the oxygen. I pull a small van behind the motorhome that holds our 2 mobility scooters. We thought this was a better way to live out our last days. We have been travelling like this for 3 years now.”
You just gotta respect this couple.
I met another German overland couple yesterday. There is something very amazing about this couple. They have been traveling their whole lives. In Germany they say it was with them in the cradle of their birth. I like that. However, Peter is now retired so they have enough money to go where they want. They have been traveling full-time for 7 years now. They have just come back from Morocco and will go to Asia this summer. OK a little math. That would make him at least 72 right? This couple is strong. I would not consider anything about them frail.
They travel the world in their Mercedes, ex-military, self-build overlander. It is an honour to spend time with them. It is worth learning German just to learn from them. There is this thing that they carry too. They are strong, self-assured, confident. They dont brag – they dont need to. In the last 7 years they have put on 400,000 km and been all over the world with her. Literally, in our short time together she talked to me about their trips to Africa, India, Alaska, United States and talked to me about their 3 weeks in a freighter bringing their truck back from South America. Not really bragging. Talking about it as if it was the most natural thing in the world to do.
I couldn’t imagine them fading away in an old folks home. They will probably die parachuting off some cliff or something. Yeah.
They are not the first German couple we have met like this. Ooooh they are their own breed. They are…. wow I have run out of good adjectives – I think you get the idea.
This reminds me of an old man I met in Orkney. He was there in his motorhome. He was living in it full-time. He told me, “I’ve only been living in my motorhome a few years. I was in a Narrow boat for about 20 years but then it got too difficult moving it around everyday.”
“How old were you when you moved into the narrow boat?”
“Oh, 63 or so.”
That means this man of 83+ is travelling the world solo.
I mean why are we not hearing more about these really amazing older people? Their mere existence screams out “I WILL NOT GO QUIETLY INTO THE NIGHT”. They aren’t waiting. They are LIVING.
I havent completely figured out this group of people. I probably never will. You see, I have seen a lot of hedonists travelling too. Travelling for the pleasure of it. Expecting the world to deliver every pleasure they desire. That is not what these people are about. It is the heart and soul of the adventurer they possess. It is more about witnessing the beauty and diversity of the world. Of standing up in their big, functional, well worn hiking boots or their mobility scooter and saying “I am a witness”. As a people that stand up high and are worthy of heaps of respect and saying “I respect that”. I want to hover in their shadows and look at where their fingers are pointing and learn from them.
Our world is too infatuated with youth. It is really quite ridiculous. First, we have make-up and hair dye. Now, we have moved on with all our heroes getting surgery to make them look younger. Am I the only one seeing this as sorta weird. Yeah, yeah, I know I’m no spring chicken myself but I have been thinking about this for a while now.
We shove our old people aside like garbage. Sure we look after them. Kinda. We help their bodies live that little bit longer but what about their souls. What about listening to them. Learning from them. They have so much to give.
With this couple I met yesterday I didn’t even know what to ask. I must have sat there, staring with my mouth gaping open looking like an idiot. They had so much to teach me. Being wise they gave out precious morsels from time to time. I think that the most I learned from them though was not so much in what they said or did but who they are. What they have been becoming. Just being in the same space with them taught my soul volumes. Does that make any sense? Am I getting weird now? I am just not sure how to word it. Like being in the room with ripe fruit – true maturity. I feel empowered, like I can see better.
I feel my spirit soar.
Yeah, that’s it.
We have finally left Portugal. I know, I know, but we love it there. So anyways, here we are outside Gibraltar. We have been wild camping with about 30 campervans etc. We were in this big dirt parking lot right next to the border crossing. Kinda surreal actually. We were in Spain, La Linea de la Conception. We were carrying our passports so we could go back and forth from “Little Britain” (Gibraltar) to Spain. Gibraltar was great for some tastes of where we have been calling home before starting our journeys this time. Elizabeth went to Morrisons and filled a bag with malt loaf. Andrew took some of us to a pub and we had chips and cheese. Samuel, Donald and Alana were busy til late evening going back and forth from country to country. Me and Abi found some insulin and even a place to get a blood test done for her diabetes for just 9.90 OK, not as much fun as malt loaf but necessary. Hannah is just happy to have some more famous 5 books from the second hand bookstore.
Once you cross the border you walk or drive across the airport runway, through a tunnel and into, well, a great big duty-free street. I must say, we were a bit disappointed with the amount of English books. Maybe our expectations were a bit high. We did find a good second hand book store in a cake shop. We did have a good time.
We made lots of new friends. Full-timers, like us. Pen has lived on the road for years and is sporting a van conversion of his own creation.
Pen took off 5 years ago with some friends for one year. After one month he realized he wanted to do this full-time, went back long enough to sell his house and is living off the interest. It is just him and 2 stray dogs he adopted in Spain. “Boss” and “Wife” took off in the big green bus one month ago with 5 big dogs and her daughter, “Child” (10 years old). She became instant friends with TJ and Hannah. Here they are sporting their “best friend hats” they found at a Chinese shop.
Boss’s wife had cancer a couple of years back and after chemo realized she had strayed far from her teenager dream of travelling full-time. When her hair grew back in curly instead of straight she cut it into a mohawk and started to make plans to start travelling with her daughter. As far as wild camping, well, we are coming to the conclusion that Spain seems to always be hard. After 3 days in La Linea we were moved on by the police. I tell you in 10 minutes everyone was gone. All except 2 motorhomes. One of the remaining motorhomes had a blown engine and the second motorhome had the new engine for the first on their trailer. It is strange. Portugal seems to be quite accepting of wild campers as they spend money locally. France and Germany provide special low cost camping but Spain. It is SO HARD to bring a motorhome here. Campgrounds are really expensive and wild camping is really difficult. We are meeting more and more people with some experience on the road who skip through Spain as quickly as possible. They jump from Southwest France and plan their trip perfect so they can be in Portugal by the next evening. If they want to go further south they go to the south of Portugal and skip, as quickly as possible, to Morocco via Algeciras (where the cheap ferries are).
We have now left the Gibraltar area and are in Tarifa. We have just spent one night in a campground. Taking showers, washing clothes, charging electricity. After being overwhelmed at my big bags of laundry I have decided that small and decentralized is better. Just like our trash. When we first started out we accumulated big bags of trash that were hard to get rid of. We switched to small plastic carrier bags. Problem solved. So, applying the same principle to our laundry. Everyone will keep a pillow case in their locker for their dirty clothes and they will be responsible for it themselves. Dispersed and personal. If this doesn’t work we will have to try something else.
Unfortunately it rained the whole time so we were at this campground, huddled in our motorhome, walking through a lake, that had formed outside our truck to get anywhere. We did get to hang out and watch movies with our ample electricity.
So, been having some great conversations with Paulo and Edna. Living in the Algarve in a bizarre mix of abundance and simplicity and love. Their home is a flat in a rundown villa. They have a circle drive, a beautiful pool and majestic patios. The furnishings are simple and well used. There are animals galore and kids, laughter and crying. There is a toilet that we keep getting locked into because the doorknob refuses any attempts to repair it. There is really weird plumbing (dont want to go into that one).
Paulo and Edna lived in Porto, in the north of Portugal. He had a thriving Tattoo business, 20 years of clients that kept coming back and referring their friends. He was doing 14 tattoos a day. Lots of fame. Lots of money. He came down here to the Algarve to have a life with less tattooing, less money and more time with his family. He has just opened a small tattoo parlor on a back street in the poorest city in western Europe when he could have opened one In Faro where all the money is.
Edna was a model. She celebrated finishing her modeling career by getting her first tattoo on her ankle. She is now pierced, tattooed and head shaven. She says those days of being a model weren’t really her. With a twinkle in her eyes she says she was never really much for caring what other people thought. BTW she also turned away from fame and money. Lately, she has been offered a full-time job doing really good things of helping poor people in the area. She said she doesnt want to do it. “Don’t need the money and I would miss my time with my babies, the mornings I have with Paulo and when nice people come and stay at our house I wouldn’t be able to spend time with them. I can also still help out but I dont want to work away from home full-time.” And she does help out – alot.
You know what I am going to say. They have had what so many want- money, fame. They turned away from it for a happier life. Kinda different huh. I tell you, I think they have the right idea. Sure, their lives arent perfect. They celebrate the uniqueness in themselves and each other and the world around them. They celebrate simple small joys. They even celebrate smelly dogs and nappies. They live unique lives where they celebrate the life in the big and small, the ups and downs of life. What a wonderful family.
Well, I finally did it. After over 12 years of talking about it I finally got my tattoo. Paulo worked on it for 2 hours. It did hurt – alot. He would still like to do some more colour. But, this is the one I have been imagining all those years. It is the tree of life with a wild vine wrapping around and from it. I am Sooooo happy.
I guess I never thought it was the right time because a tough guy stranger etching a permanent mark on me that represented my spiritual journey was just not the image I had. But, when I met Paulo I knew I trusted him and I respect him and his own spiritual journey. Just seemed the right time and the right person to do it. I have been talking to Paulo about doing it since May. I have found out that Paulo is not just a great person but one of the best tattoo artists in Portugal. He has been doing tattoos for over 20 years. He said that when he first wanted to do tattoos you couldnt buy a tattoo machine so he made his own out of a blow dryer.
He did many sketches in November before finding one that we both liked after about a month of efforts. It is a different sort of thing combining a tree and a vine I guess. So, I went into Spider Tattoos in Olhao today with Paulo and Serge and have come back with “ink”. Andrew and Sam are kinda jealous I think. I am so pleased. Paulo said it might not seem like my arm, at first, when I see it in the mirror, but actually, I recognize it. It has been in my imagination for so long and is perfect. I love it.
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This is a photo of our first leg of the journey. Lizzy’s first hitchhiking experience. Actually we were waiting for a taxi to the airport and some of our friends saw us and gave us a ride in their big blue horsebox.
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