in PORTO

OK.... i'm back "home", althought right now i feell my tent and my bike more a home than this one.... will try to update last days in some days and give more news...

(i forgot my scellphone in a coffee in Pocinho so don't try to contact me... but i want to meet my friends around here now!!!!!)

Lagoaça -> Pocinho -> Marco de Canaveses

In order to still get my grandmother in Porto, visiting my mother, we decided to catch a train, so we could short the trip in one or two days.

We looked for the first train station in the beautiful Douro landscape, and in Pocinho we caught a train to marco de canaveses, where we arrived already late and found a beautiful house where to cook the last dinner, drink the last wine and sleep the last night of this long trip :)...

it was also the last day of the spoon that i used to cook during all my trip (and even some smaller trips before)... amazing how it stand till the last cooked meal!

Cibanal -> Lagoaça (Portugal)

Another day of fog and cold...

last strawberry tree we stopped to pick fruits in spainlooking to portugal, after the river...

We entered portugal crossing the douro river near Bemposta, an amazing view and a huge climb up...

almonds for snack ;D

Then we cycled direction Mogadouro for a while in the top of the mountain, almost no traffic, a LOT of fog, and found a nice house in the middle of a forest where we could mount the tent, make a fire and get warm...

Fuentelapeña -> Cibanal

the funny small house where we passed the night

The temperatures went down and the day was really foggy, sometimes we could not see each other although we were less than 50 meters away...
We tried to find a nice place to sleep, and, already near the border, we end up stopping, because it was getting too dark and cold, near a stone house... was really hard to lit up a fire and it was one of the coldest nights we meet...

Valladolid -> Fuentelapeña

We left La Casa with pablo and diana, then they left us to visit a friend and we continued cycling, direction Portugal, with a nice sunny day...
Finally we found a nice small circle-house where we rest ;)

Valladolid

Last day of common work, we realized that mixing straw in the clay mixture makes the structure better and easier to build up :D, it's so nice to learn (or remember) by your own mistakes, DIY or DIE :pWe prepared to leave tomorrow and then went to valladolid for a drink and internet...

Valladolid

Some people appeared during the last days to help out and today it continued, trying to finish the toilet, the walls made got wet by the rain and this day we focused on the roof, as the walls were not getting really good :p...
When it got dark, we continued with a funny work, making candles out of old candle pieces, La Casa runs normally on solar panels, and a petrol-powered generator for concerts and heavy works, when the batteries go out (not enough sun light or too much energy use) we need candles to light :D

Valladolid

picking up cauliflowers, fresh, in the early morningsmashing old clay bricks to make new clay, genius :Dseparating the vegetables for all the BAH! participants

Another working day started with picking up dozens of cauliflowers for the BAH! Project. Then continue the compost toilet: we started to prepare the walls, made of bottles and old bricks mashed mixed with a bit of chalk.

first wall with bottles experimentpaella and the automatic dish-washing car :Drecovering the rain water, the system separates the first dirty water from the rest by the use of a ball that floats and closes the passage to the thick tube, allowing the clean water to be collected in a big pool

Valladolid

beginning of the compost toilet

The working days started, and one of the tasks is to build a compost toilet outside the house, we were carrying and pilling materials together all day :)...just stopping for a nice lunch and finishing only when it was already dark.

Kill the state and build the anarchyif you fight you may lose, if you don't you are already lost

Valladolid

pumping water manually to the kitchen :)Animal liberation, human liberation - for a cruelty-free food

We continued the quest of finding useful things (there were too much things and too little time) in the house in valladolid...

inside an abandoned bicycle shop

In the late afternoon we joined the valladolid critical mass and went out for a drink...

around 40 people appeared to the ride in the town
squat your own space

Valladolid

permaculture vegetable spiral

pablo's turtles sanctuary :D

We helped diana and janire to make the chicken's jail (called “house”) bigger because lately the dogs ate 3 or 4 chickens and they can't go out anymore...

building up the chicken's cageyou already heard about us more than 1000 times...

they got a contact about a house that is going to be demolished soon and one of the owners want to give things away and we passed all afternoon moving garbage and destroying walls to recycle the most possible (windows, doors, locks, old wood ovens, isolation material, furniture, bicycle parts, books....)

taking a bilbaina kitchen with hot water system from a wall

When we come back, in La Casa there was a movie and a debate about argentina riots and crisis.

Valladolid -> Palencia -> Valladolid

against especulation - SQUAT / The fight is the path - Social Revolution

In the morning i participated in the house assemblea (meeting) to talk about the next working weekend and devide some tasks, nice to see such an organized (even too much?) assemblea, some of the starters of the project were involved in the CNT, the spanish anarchist union, and that is noticable in some organizing detailsThe drugs destroy your life and your fight - reinvent your fun: Destroy the state

After i prepared some materials for the working days with muli and visited some bikeshops in valladolid to repair yo's bike.

for a world free of GMOs

In the night, by car :s, we went to palencia to participate in a talk about squatting, presented by a known lawyer in squatting court cases, interesting and motivating talk...
Before returning home we went out for a beer in palencia with peke and goyo...

Olmedo -> Valladolid

already pretty close to valladolid, we recycled some bananas and yogurts for our future hosts and arrived in La Casa just before lunch ;)

crossing the Douro river :D

La Casa is a squat where pablo, a friend, lives...we talked all afternoon...in the house they have a big garden where they can produce almost all the vegetables they consume and still have a working group outside the house that gets some of the vegetables also, the project is called BAH! (Bajo el Asfalto esta la Huerta – Under the asphalt lies the vegetable garden, inspired in the known may'68 sentence, under the paving stones lies the beach!)

In the night there was a programmed debate about ecotopia biketour that we were already planning to participate, few people appeared, but we still had a nice talk (for some hours) about biketour and direct action...
after dinner Dolor, a HC-punk band from barcelona, played in the basement...great to recover energies (lol)...

Valsain -> Olmedo

After a warm and nice resting night we got up early and decided to try to cycle the most we could to recover the last day of almost no cycling...

We stopped in segovia (the planed place to sleep two days ago) for a warm chocolate and then cycled under cold wind, just stopping for a hot coffee and finding an empty building when it got dark...

prepared to fight the cold wind :D

Las Dehesas -> Valsain

I woke up and saw everything WHITE from a window... it was snowing (and probably already for some time)... we prepared for the cold (making a hot tea with the last water we had – bad idea – and covering our feet with plastic bags – good idea) and left the “warm” hotel already late.

prepared for the snow :D

Cycling in the snow was pretty fun and crazy...but after 4 hours “cycling” (more walking and pushing the bikes) it started to get dark and we were only sure of following the right road because of a car track marked on the snow a long time before...we almost did not cross other people after 17:00...

resting in the snow :D

finally (4 hours, and only about 20km) we got to the other side of the mountain and saw some lights of a village, the problem was that our brakes (both) frozen and yolanda's bike had a really burned tired (not enough friction to cycle on the snow) so we had to walk down...arriving in the village we finally could drink something (other than eating snow :D) and decided (more or less) to stay a night in the local hostel (the second time in all my trip i pay a hostel for passing the night)