Gitano guitar

Listening to Camarón de la Isla's Leyenda del Tiempo, the legendary and game-changing Flamenco album from 1979 transports me instantaneously back to an extremely hot day in the start of July this summer. On the extreme outskirts of Barcelona, having passed less and less tourist infiltrated barrios' on the train out from the Arc del Triomf metro station, we walked a mile or two down a dirt road back in the direction of the city centre, heading towards a petrol station, whose vague whereabouts I had managed to acquire via hitchwiki.org (an highly useful digital tool for hitch-hikers) .

Standing in the 40 degree heat, wearing a tee-shirt on my head and trying to thumb a lift South with the occasional traffic that passed through the rippling expanse of car park, I felt a tad ridiculous. Ridicule however, quickly turned to frustration and general disparagement. Sprinting over to the sole lorry parked up, the signs were promising, he was heading direction Tarragona, he could understand my pigeon Spanish but he only had space for one. We weren't desperate enough to split up so that lift never came to fruition.

Some time later, Juan in his van turned up, shades on, aircon blasting and moved his electrical goods into the back, making space for us up front. The feeling of moving after standing so still never fails to lift the spirits, and not having to extend our arms was a nice change as well. The music was just as encapsulating as the fact we had gotten the lift, it was competing against and winning the air conditioning for best vibrations in the small cabin. Juan fitted seamlessly into the imagery of the Flamenco conjured up, albeit with a modern twist. The rawness and energy of this mystical Spanish folk music made him speak up. The journey could have been a quiet one, Juan was perhaps not a man of many words, but he spoke with an apparent love of Camarón and his music. A love I was only later to discover resonated throughout almost the whole of Spain.

Was this Spain itself projected through the tinny speakers? Cigarette smoke wobbled from side to side in the cabin as Juan told us of the Gypsy's early demise through alcohol and drug addiction. Tragic, passionate, fiery and shrouded in mystery, I was in a semi-trance and only snapped out of it to make sure we exited at the right time in order to stay on track for Almeria, which is incidentally the birthplace of collaborator and fellow Gitano, Tomatito. As a parting gift, Juan offered us a CD, a copied disc in a rough plastic cover. I carried this gift throughout our 2 month hitch-hiking, volunteering and exploration adventure, managing to keep it safe and intact.

I played it when we arrived back in the UK, expecting a red and yellow wave of mystery and power to wash over me, instead I was greeted by terrible modern Spanish pop music with Euroclub beats blended together in some horrible musical comparison to Spain's current crisis. Perhaps Juan wanted to musically show us what Spain meant to him through Camarón de la Isla but also project the change that has occurred to his country to us when we arrived home. 

Camerón de la Isla - La Leyenda del Tiempo

Hitch hiking and various other pastimes #12

Prickly pears & Moorish settlements

After passing multiple hippy vans at the top of the hill, behind the white church, I was in cave territory, 'Las Cuevas'. It was a strange area with lots of litter strewn all over the place, but also nicely kept (illegal) caves. I walked around on the little pathways, hither and thither and was starting to head back down to the centre, when I passed some abandoned cave-dwellings and suddenly heard loud barking out of nowhere behind me, then a large appeared, snarling and barking aggressively, before I knew it, it had gone for me. I instinctively turned my back on it and stumbled into the cacti behind me. Then it was gone and I ascended the mountain in a state of shock, stopping at a painted van to rinse the small wound with some water. I hobbled back down the Albaizin area to tell John what had happened.

He informed me, to my relief, that there was no Rabies in the area, however I went back to my little room and rinsed it out further to be on the safe side. John had made a few euros that day so we headed to his 'local', a small bar 15 minutes walk away in downtown Granada. As he had mentioned, it was nothing special, but they knew him and the tapas were extremely good, which I can vouch for, as, between us we had a decent sized bowl of chips, meat and sauce to accompany out beverages of choice. The second tapas was skewered marinated meat with some bread. Especially good for John with his small budget and love for drinking, it was a 2 for 1 offer too good to turn down.

We watched the end of a Real Madrid thrashing and headed back to the casa, where we consumed a few more beers and talked late into the night, during which he mentioned his sustainable community project in Northern Spain, which sounds promising and he obviously knows alot about such matters, having connections in various such establishments.

After not being able to resist the combination of alcohol and cigarettes, I woke up with a sore head and throat, so I pepped myself up a bit by getting my first shower for nearly a week. Although the shower was a complicated old Spanish device, I figured it out and washed in the tiny little shower cubicle, with walls that were caving in on me, but, it was lovely feeling to be in warm clean water again.

The previous day, John had explained a walk that he sometimes took people on, 5-6 hours including a picnic, so I set off using my hazy memory of his rough directions as a guide. Past the ancient little pueblo of Sacramonte, where the original Gitanos or Gypsy's lived, past ferocious dogs behind ragged wire fences, mountain bikers and plenty of prickly pear cacti; until I arrived at the crossing over the small river and started to climb on the small dirt tracks from past paseo's and mountain bikers alike. It was lovely to walk alone again in the mountains, even though I was only 25 minutes from the city centre, the smells and noises all came flooding back and I found myself almost instinctively making noises to warn off wild boars.

After passing an inhabited cave almost 45 minutes up the mountain, I began to search for a suitable picnic location, but I decided I wanted a view to accompany to my sandwich and glow in the dark fruit juice, so i carried on clambering up through the scrub, past giant ants and noisy bee's until I reached a plateau of extremely red soil, where there were lots of mountain bike trails and more signs of life than before. I followed the main path round and was confronted by a picnic area with hundreds of Granadino's milling around in the shade of the pine trees. the noise was overwhelming after the tranquillity of my ascent and I sought solitude further down the hill, where I ate and drank, looking out over part of the city, towards my next destination; the spa-town of Lanjaron, the pueblo I went to school in, what an experience to be back there...would anyone recognise me? Probably not, although I half expected to see some familiar faces, or if not, at least places from a past life.

Hitch hiking and various other pastimes #4

Sean was a small, gingery truck-driver who had also travelled a fair when he was younger and was eager to tell me the in's and out's of trucking. It appeared as if my lack of success in the truck-parks could very well be the dreaded insurance and the fact that the lorries are on the road 8+ hours a day makes the insurance iffy to start with...adding more people to the equation skews it even more.

Feeling on top of the world after finally getting out of the ghastly South Mimms services, I invested in an overpriced tuna sandwich and wolfed it down in the sun at Thurrock services. I walked past and greeted a Scottish guy who was hitching somewhere up north, but his reaction seemed semi-agitated so I left him to it, wandered further down the exit road and stood on the middle divider.

There were hoards of vehicles heading past, both lorries and cars, and once again I was in top spirits. Peculiar thoughts and passing comments are a source of constant amusement whilst trying to win a ride, but I find my prejudices still surfacing, presuming certain people will most certainly not give me a ride and raising my hopes when a 'suitable candidate' drives past. It seemed a lot of truckers were willing to take me, however they were also going the wrong way unfortunately. A young guy in a Mercedes saloon drove past me on the other side of the road and asked me where I was headed, however he was going direction Milton Keynes. Not long after that he drove past again on my side of the road and said the best he could do was to pick me up in an hour and a half, after he'd been to his office. He explained his eagerness to help me out; he himself had hitch hiked throughout Canada a couple of years ago..

A definite link between all the generous souls who have picked me up is their previous travel experience and consequently their love of travel. It would seem the openness of voyaging and the new experiences it brings, makes individuals more aware, responsive and willing to help, perhaps having experienced the generosity and hospitality of other aids this cause. Either way I was very grateful to all those who gave me a seat in what is usually a private space.

After the young guy sped off with my thanks having been said, not 2 minutes later, an older gentleman in a red Mercedes, a real luxury car, pulled over and said he was going to Maidstone via the M20. I obliged, he popped the trunk and I slid down and into a lovely interior of leather and polished wood. The incredibly reclined seat in which I found myself instantly seemed to soothe any pain I might have from carrying my backpack. Phillip, my chauffeur as it were, was delivering said car to Maidstone, he then proceeded to tell me that often when he has delivered a car and needs to get to his next destination, he becomes a hitch hiker himself, albeit a slightly more professional, business-like one. Using the special registration plate which was secured in the window, people recognised him as a professional driver and extend their generosity his way.

It was an absolute please to sit in this beautiful modern piece of German engineering, hearing it tick through the automatic gearbox and listening to Phillip's tales of his days working as a photographer on a cruise ship all over the world and how different hitch-hiking is in Africa (Botswana to be specific). It seems a friend of his managed to pay off a mini-bus purely by picking up passengers on his way to work for 2 years.

Phillip was following his sat-nav and before we knew it, we had arrived at the junction where the M20 towards Dover turned East whereas Phil was headed into Maidstone itself. Had I have known this at the time I would have asked to join him. He hastily dropped me at the side of the dual carriageway and I walked back up towards the M20 on ramp, sign in hand and feeling optimistic. However upon arrival at said junction it was quite clear that it was a terrible thumbing spot, being on a bend with no place to pull over and vehicles travelling over 50mph. After a scramble uphill to get to this spot, I stuck it out for a short while before throwing in the towel and searching for a better spot.

Cut Loose

One of my friends said to me earlier how 'lucky' I was to be going away travelling through Europe come next month. This led me to think about what it means when people mention that somebody is 'lucky' for travelling.

First of all it depends on what your definition of lucky is... When I think of luck, it brings to mind random events of a positive nature, for instance if you are walking down the street, feeling thirsty and have no money and out of the blue you find a £2 coin on the floor. That surely is luck.

If you want to delve further into what luck consists of; some would probably say luck to a certain extent is karmic, what goes around comes around etc. In that case good deeds lead to positive events occurring in your life. However, I made a conscious decision to go travelling a few months ago, so luck doesn't play a part in the initial process. Its purely drive to do something, just like you get the drive to go for a walk, or to play football, go skateboarding etc.

It could be said that me being able to travel is luck, I was born in a westernized country in reasonable wealth, compared to other parts of the world. I have had a good upbringing, education and home life, this allows me to have a sense of freedom, to a certain extent. I can apply for a passport and travel with relative freedom in most parts of the world. So in that way I do consider myself 'lucky'.

In many ways, if you know me, you'll probably agree that I am for the most part a pretty average 21 year old; steady relationship, family of four etc etc. However that is precisely one of the reasons for my wanting to travel into the (somewhat) unknown, I don't want to be an average 21 year old. Its not for reasons some might think, I don't aim to become famous or have people write about my adventures or what-not. Its just that normal life is for me considerately boring. Yes, its enjoyable at times, but for the most part I'm BORED. That might sound cruel or inconsiderate to friends and family, but I assure you it isn't the people that make me bored, although they do exist, no doubt about it. Its the daily routines of numbing mindless shit that I feel myself dragged into on a regular basis. When I detect these routines that make up my 'comfortable' existance, they make me feel the need to escape.

Sitting here now after just ordering, collecting and eating a take-away pizza, I almost feel ashamed. I know these are merely trivialities in the larger scheme of things, but it still makes me think that I should really be 'living' instead of sat here staring at this stupid laptop telling people about why I want to go. Why don't you go then for crying out loud? Well yeah if only it was that simple...If I had the self-confidence and knowledge to be able to set out of my house with no destination in mind and no money as back-up then I'd already be gone. Sadly, even a small budget is necessary for my travels. However if you know where to look, you will find people who have survived for years on a budget of absolutely nothing. Imagine that. Impossible right? Apparently not.

Its hard to imagine breaking such routines for a lot people, and most of the time it can take a life-changing event for anyone to do so, however it doesn't have to be like that. You know when you go somewhere new or do something you've never done before (be it legal or illegal) and you get that buzz which makes you feel 'alive' to use the cliche term...well thats because you're outside of your comfort zone, it makes you feel that way. Obviously not everyone is the same and this doesn't count for each and every person but for me that feeling once every fortnight isn't enough. I need to feel constantly 'alive', otherwise what is the point? For some people this buzz probably comes if they earn/win/steal or otherwise come by sizeable amounts of money. To me this is irrelevant. You really don't need money to be happy. Do you want to die rich or do you want to be able to tell people you travelled around the world using nothing but your intuition and other peoples good will.

As you may or may not know, when I leave for souther Spain, I will be attempting to hitch-hike, wild camp wherever possible, and use resources such as couchsurfing.org. It has been said many a time, that these means to an end improve peoples faith in humanity. There are good people out there, not just rapists and wierdo's as the news would have you think.

The cliche terms referring to 'living like its your last day' and such are used that often that you forget to take heed of what they actually mean. Inside these over-referenced quotes is a genuine meaning. If your life was to be taken away, would you be happy with what you've achieved? Does earning and extra £1 an hour matter? If it makes you happy I suppose you could say it does. But if thats the case I don't know why you've just read this.

So don't be lucky, just get outside of your comfort zone. If you don't like it, at least you've tried. If you do, then don't go back to your normal life, do something radical.

To skateboard or not to skateboard...

Sorry for the lack of blog posts lately, I seem to have lacked enough motivation to just crack on and write some stuff that hardly anybody will read. Oh wait it kind of makes sense now, after saying that.

Anyway...

I have the a predicament, although to call it a predicament sounds negative, however I am happy with either choice, I simply can't decide.

I have been skateboarding for nearly 7 years now and still love it as much as I first did.. Last time I was away for a month I took my board but it lay untouched under my WWOOFer bed in the foothills of the Sierra Nevada.

This time I will be hitchhiking longer distances, through France and Spain and then possibly through Italy, Slovenia, Croatia...

I have had various opinions from my friends on this matter, obviously biased depending on whether they skate or not. Some say I have to take it, missing out on a great park to skate or hooking up with the locals (skateboarders around the world have a tendency to help other skateboarders, its a group that you are instantly welcomed into). Others say it should stay at home, hitch-hiking and travelling in general is for me an escape from everyday life, and my skateboard is very much a part of my routine.

There is also the fact that I will be volunteering in the more mountainous regions in Spain, such as the Sierra Nevada and Picos de Europe. In these locations I can almost guarantee there will be minimal skateboarding activity/locations.

Alongside these factors is the awkwardness factor of carrying it all that way to not set foot on it, with it merely taking up space and weighing me down. However, if I find myself 15 miles from a town, on a flat road, it could be invaluable...but then again there is the fact that I [i]will[/i] have a 45l backpack on, which means my movement will be severely limited.

If I had to say whether I am swayed more toward bringing it or leaving it to gather dust at home, I would have to say the negatives seem to outway the positives at the moment.

Travel Plans

I set this blog up initially so I could write stuff from my travels, maybe I won't be writing them straight onto the world wide web, but hopefully they'll be getting on here eventually...
Personally I find reading travel blogs alot more interesting than the ones of people who sit at home and do day-to-day update of their lives.

So the basic plan was to get a lift down to Spain with a guy who contacted me via Helpx.net, however I had to let him know today that I've had to give it a miss, partly due to him not being easily contactable (this is a journey to Spain we're talking about, not just down the road..) and because I would like to try and push through another 3-4 weeks torture...I mean, work, in order to have a decent bank balance when I set off.

It was hard to turn that lift down, it seemed like it was going to be the spark that set the adventure motor running, but sometimes good things come to those who wait. It will also make it a bit easier for me and my girlfriend, who is planning on joining me mid-July, wherever I am.

So the plan is still to get to Spain by mid-March, now its just a case of figuring out how. I have had romantic visions of me getting a ferry to Amsterdam and hitch-hiking down, counting on the good hearts of other and good fortune of myself to make it to my destination. But in reality, I don't speak much French at all and it could take alot of time and patience. One day I will do it, I promise.

I really do not want to fly, although it is without a doubt the easiest and cheapest option, it seems like a complete cop-out, there is only a few miles of water between England and mainland Europe, only a fool would skip out all the good bits inbetween. So I'm still undecided on that one, but, however I end up getting there, I should hopefully end up in Andalucia, Spain. A place that holds a special place in my heart, after spending 6-7 months living in 2 remote mountain houses in the foothills of the Sierra Nevada. Since that time spent galavanting through the wild mountains, seeing hundreds of vultures circle up on vertical air currents, watching snakes slither into dry-stone walls, I have longed to be back there.

In 2009 I spent a month volunteering at a lovely little cortijo about an hour away from where we used to live. This was a fantastic time and I met many amazing people, however a month was just not enough and my longing to travel has no subsided since then. As I never fancied the prospect of university, coupled with the fact that I picked what I now see as the wrong options at college, travelling has become my major concern. Who knows, I might go to university someday in the future, but for now, while the world is still a reasonably normal place and I am lucky enough to have a European passport allowing me to travel almost completely freely, I feel it is my duty to see and feel as much of life as possible.

The cliche that travelling in 'infectious' is overused to put it lightly, but all cliche's are formed from truths and it is the uncertainty in this case that one craves, not knowing who you will be volunteering with, or where you will be tomorrow. For some people this is not even an option, they thought of having to pitch a tent somewhere in an unknown country to them is terrifying. But that surely is living. More so than 'living for the weekend'. Don't get me wrong, I'm not anti-party by any means, but theres partying and theres being a drunken lout just because you've got nothing better to spend your money on.

So after having my fill of Andalucia and all it has to offer, there is a possibility to head to Portugal, a place I have never been, to stay with and English couple I met whilst volunteering 3 years ago. Another location on my agenda is Asturias, Northen Spain. A place compared more to Scotland than anywhere else, its beauty is in its rugged-ness. A place where bears still wander the barranco's. I found a HelpX host who is renovating an old hamlet with a group of volunteers. They forage for food and sleep under the stars, in what sounds to me like a mini-paradise. I like to think they haven't got back in touch yet because there is no internet connection, although we will have to wait and see...

Getting behind

As I knew I would, I've got very far behind on my blog, this is partly due to my lazyness and partly because I got a job working nights in a warehouse in order to fund some travels this summer.

I have been working there for just over a month I reckon now but have had to have nearly two weeks off because of back and stomach problems, was told that I wasnt eligible for statutory sick pay, but I believe I should be after over 10 days off.

The plan is to save as much as possible, however this will not mean I will have a lot of money for my travels, as about £2000 looks like the limit I will reach. I have joined www.helpx.net and have wrote to two hosts, one in Asturias, northern Spain and one in Andalucia. Both look spectacular, and as I have visited these regions before I know of their natural beauty, albeit it in different ways.

I am trying to convince a Swedish friend to meet me in Amsterdam sometime between February and the end of March, then to try and hitchhike down to one of these two locations. I have also written to a 'travel companion' request on helpx, from a guy driving down to Spain/Portugal in a VW camper, which would make for a grand experience.

Having been contemplating life and whilst being ill and sleep deprived, I have come to the conclusion that it is not satisfactory to merely spend my days slaving away in an awful warehouse full of criminals and other such peoples, and although I count myself lucky to have acquired a job, it is not the life for me. 2 weeks in a place such as that, taught me that I must get away and live a more fulfilled life. It seems peculiar that from one nights wage in the warehouse, even though it is almost half of what the other employees recieve (I am working through an agency), I should be able to live a comfortable week in the wild regions of Spain. This is mainly because of the arrangement of working for food and lodging, but to me working on a mountain simply does not seem like work, for the beauty of the place and the fulfilment of the tasks, lead the mind away from the fact it is an exchange of labour.

I shall try to update on a more regular basis from now on.