London and first days in Ecotopia Biketour

Mare st social centre

WE moved to RatStar Camberwell Social Centre, a recently squatted place... amazing what they have been doing in such short time...

Seb's tandem with Sound system trailer!!!action against BP financing Tate museum - Art not Oil Campaing

in 5 days we built 2 bikes out of pieces we found in DIY bike workshops... Recovered from the garbage...amazing how organized people in projects are...

RatStar

we visited loads of projects and actions, specially 56a, an infoshop and DIT (Do-it-Together) Workshop.. Met Valentina and seb several times...

56a's Bike working day and infoshop

so much to tell and i just have 20 minutes of laptop battery...critical mass in london was pretty incredible... the rocket stove melted yesterday :-/... skipping in london is crazy... squatting is pretty established...

Capitalism isn't working... another world is possible...
plans to build a rocketstove

now i'm in York, for the Toward Carfree Cities Conference, after visiting Clow Beck Eco Centre in Darlington and a community for mental disabled people in Botton.

Critical Mass in London
Biketour first rideEcocentre in Darlingtonfirst biketour dinner with our hosts

Porto -> London

Ok, we are such an extreme lucky bastards...

After less than a day and a half and only 4 different cars we arrived in London... thanks for the drivers who picked us up ;)... Marcio took us from viseu to after paris... almost non-stop!!!

Arriving in London we meet mark, laura and koala in mark's house and tomorrow we are going to look for bikes, meet friends and some autonomous spaces...

back on the adventure

is kind of fun that i never really posted the last day of my trip... in a way i just didn't want to close it...so that official "return to Porto" post will now never be published...

but that's not really what i wanted to write now, with this post i'm now starting a new chapter of this way of "traveliving"... many things happened since I return to Porto, some little travels in the middle, loads of projects... still escaping work... trying to postpone voluntary slavery...

from saturday on we will be travelling again! our fuzzy plan is to hitchhike to London, find a bike there and join Ecotopia Biketour 2010...

this time i doubt i will be making a daily blog, but will try to write something from time to time... this biketour is going to be really intensive, loads of projects to visit, climate action camps, workshops and conferences... you can see the planed route in: http://www.ecotopiabiketour.net/route

resistance is fertile ;)

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...