Blog – Page 8 – Ecotopia Biketour

Hot Springs, Critical Mass and Squat with a view: Biketour in Ourense

Candid September 4, 2018 August 31, 2018

After a long and never-ending downhill, the Biketour arrived in Ourense. A major point on our route-planning map were the hot springs in the city, which we were much looking forward to visit (as we decided to take a route that would not pass by the other nicer hot springs in the Gerês National Park). The original plan was to stay for two full days wild-camping next to the springs, but when we discovered that the springs were in between two motorways and a national road in a steep river valley next to an industrial area, we were very happy…

Naked dogs, unasked helpful help, blahblah about blahblah and myself

luhukasu September 2, 2018 August 31, 2018

The water, the lake, the rhythm. Breath in and laugh at the world. Precooked plastic sealed quinoa taboulet. Also other food. Thanks dumpster. The beach, the sun, the wind. Pedal up and keep pedaling up. Pedal up and keep pedaling up. Downhill thrill. But we can’t stay here, go on. Although it was a nice place as many others before. Just a constant humming noise from the factory disturbed the beach-lake-cyclist paradise. And maybe that the natural park contains pine and eucalyptus plantations. And windmills. Us, a threat for their well-being. A cow stands next to the windmill, unable to…

Ortigueira–Ourense

Candid August 31, 2018 August 29, 2018

In Ortigueira we left the north coast of Spain to enter the hilly and (according to what everyone told us) hot Spanish inland. Most of Spain is not very hilly, sometimes even flat, but on a quite high altitude. The further north and the further east you are, the higher it is, and in some places in the north-east, the landscape can be completely flat but on more than 1000 metres above sea level. So when you leave the north coast, you first have to go up a mountain pass, but when you arrive on the top, suddenly there are…

Ortigueira

Ecotopia Biketour 2018 August 29, 2018 August 29, 2018

Fourty vegans walk into a house full of skulls. No, this is not the beginning of a joke, it is simply what happened when the biketour entered a home that we had seen advertised on Helpx as a “vegan farm”. The place was pushing the definition of farm, as it was a long-neglected property with a few fruit trees on it, and really overhauling the definition of vegan, as the estate was full of horses and the house itself, full of skulls and animal skins. It was sprinkling rain when we arrived and I rushed to push aside some horse…

Urniza

Ecotopia Biketour 2018 August 18, 2018 August 18, 2018

Dear reader, An elated time has passed since we left Urniza, and we’ve grown so beautiful that I can barely recall what it was like. It went somewhat like this: Tarara stepped on top of the dog’s shelter and onto the donkeys back, reaching and nibbling at the tree’s leaves. We knew she was a good climber, still we were amazed. Making an effort to remember Urniza my mind slipped a bit and reminisced Martorell instead, my first day in Ecotopia. We were crossing the city when I felt like an organelle in a cell. For a moment I had…

From Tapia to Ortigueira

Candid August 17, 2018 August 17, 2018

The Biketour has been going on for more than 1½ months now (hopefully someone will write some more blog posts about what happened during that time) and has now reached its last stop on the north coast of Spain in Ortigueira, Galicia, and will from here turn south towards Portugal. We are between 45 and 50 people for quite a while now, which is much bigger than in the last years. The size of the pots is just about big enough to make enough food for everyone, and we now have 3 rocket stoves and 4 trailers with us. In…

Ecotopia in Lakabe

Ecotopia Biketour August 3, 2018 August 17, 2018

We arrived in Lakabe the fifth of July after a nice swim in the river just before climbing the hardest and last kilometer. As we enter in this old occupied village , a thunderstorm started rumbling in the valley of Arce. Just in time . We are welcomed by Clara, who lives here in Lakabe since approximately one year and a half, and she used to explain us the main operation way of the place. Letś cook ! The last up hill kilometer, so hard ! So tired are we, that we fall asleep fast , but the next day,…

the first 2 weeks of a social expieriment

luhukasu August 3, 2018 August 3, 2018

throw a bunch of very different people together in a group, they are all supposed to be free and equal, add some spicing(=cycling, wildcamping,…) and see what they will make out of it… This is the 3rd time I join ecotopia biketour. During the winter, the organizing team had not only worked on planning the practical aspects of this years tour but also a lot on the theoretical bases. We created a detailed procedure how we would deal with conflicts in future. We wanted to be better prepared than last year, where it took us months to act in a…