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Fonfria

I know, a lot of time has passed by since I wrote my last (and also first post)…
It’s because I just had no time at all, things were going crazy and so much happened in such a short time…
Of course I expected my trip to be adventurous…but I never thought it would get that crazy, I never thought I’d fall in love with traveling that much and I never thought I’d find places like that….
Places I couldn’t even imagine before…
So finally I didn’t get as far as planned, not at all…I didn’t make it to the Canaries, I didn’t make it to Morocco nor southern Spain!
I completely fell in love with the few places I’ve been to and decided to forget all my plans and travel intuitively, what means: I stayed as long as it felt good at every place I found, not caring about all the plans and dates I had in my mind.
So after almost 20 days in Matavenero I headed up with a friend for an excursion to Fonfria; a village just 1,5h away from Matavenero, less like a community but also an ecovillage, as people told us.

To get there is quite complicate at some points; when you start from Matavenero you have to walk to Poibueno first, then follow the path through the village and short behind a stable you have to turn right and take a small way, winding up the mountain slowly.
Usually people don’t find that point and walk on, as we did, until they end up in front of a wonderful crazy house construction, looking like a mix of a pyramid and a tower.
However, if you end up there, don’t worry, there lives a lovely old couple and they will show you the right way.

So, finally, after they told us where to go, we found the right way, the way winding up slowly the mountain, which led us through a light forest, we passed some fields and another house construction, then we were walking straight up the mountain next to a small stream and surrounded by oaks.
Slowly we walked out of the forest, always uphill, there grew no more trees, just bushes and erica plants.

The less trees surrounded us, the more we saw of the valleys beneath us and the green mountains around us, whose color slowly changed into blue, the more far away they were…
Then we reached a broad dirt track where we had to turn right, as people from Poibueno had told us before.
We ended up almost on top of one of the tallest mountains here with an unbelievable beautiful view to the horizon.

The last piece of the way is all downhill, next to a pine-monoculture (the government plants pines everywhere to make money of it, even if pines easily start to burn and circumstances in Spain are already very good for wood fires, so wood fires are not uncommon here..) and some blackberry bushes.
While walking down we already saw some ruins and houses of Fonfria, distributed on many terraces covered by short, dry grass and wild rose bushes.
After some last steps through a light forest, we heard the first noises from the village, some chicken, goats, a woman talking…

Then we saw them.
Two young people, next to a self built clay stove, greeting us very friendly and asking from where we’re coming.
Finally they told us where we could stay for the night with our tent and we headed up to the place they had described:
Even before we reached the center of the village we had to go down, all down to the flat terraces, beneath the community garden and the church, and there we’d find a lovely place for our tent, next to a stream (whose water is drinkable!) and to some apple trees…

When we finished building up the tent it was already dark, so we decided to go up to the village just for a short excursion…
As we reached the church, we couldn’t see any lights nor people in the village,  – even if we where pretty close to the center – and started to wonder how few people lived up here…

But then we discovered some flickering lights, heard some quiet music, voices, laughter behind some ruins…
We followed the noises and the light and suddenly we stood in front of two caravans and a group of people, listening to music, drinking beer, having conversations in different languages.
Few hours later we still sat there, talking to them, drinking beer, watching some star shoots, and at one point I realized how unbelievable happy we were to be here, happy with nothing more but our place here, between the ruins, with lovely people, good music and beer and at the same time so close to nature and wilderness, and most of all: Out of the system!
So, may sound a little bit pathetic, but it impressed me so much, this wonderful piece of earth, Fonfria…

The next morning we woke up because it was so hot in our tent; although the nights were already very cold and Fonfria placed 1300m (/~0,8 miles) a.s.l..
The whole morning we were exploring the village, sometimes saw a kid or heard some noises from people working on their houses, but also discovered a lot of ruins (some were occupied by climbing goats!) and old walls…some more caravans…and of course the already completely rebuilt houses of residents.
Next to the way down to our tent we discovered a huge garden, the community garden, as we found out later, full of flowers, veggies, fruits, and well protected against the goats with a solid fence.
Later we also explored the nature around the village; walked down from terrace to terrace into the forest, which is full of many different kinds of trees, bushes, mushrooms, berries and other plants (what is very special for Spain, bc most of the original nature in Spain got destroyed and lots of species replaced by imported plants, as Eucalyptus, Pine…) and also a lot of boar!

After our excursion to the village and the nature around, I decided to stay one night more; to be on my own in the forest down there, to think about everything and mostly because I really needed an idea how to go on with my journey…
Before my friend left we went up to the spring, because people told us that there the water is better than down there were we stayed, but we didn’t get far…

Halfway we met a young guy, barefoot and with a broken jeans, and started to talk a little bit….
In the end he invited us to see his house, so we followed him a few meter out of the village, walked around a hill and suddenly stood in front of a small, hexagonal house.
In front of it was a small lake and a not really finished garden, two bikes were laying around; “everything is still in progress” he said and opened the door of his house.
I already expected a lot because most people living in ecovillages have really crazy, beautiful houses as they don’t have to follow any building codes (depends on the country and location of the ecovillage) and a lot of time ( or at least they can decide themselves on what to spend their time), so they can build whatever they can imagine (materials are mostly recycled and often from the old ruins), but I didn’t expect that much!

At first I noticed a strong smell of herbs; lots of them hung down off the ceiling next to the door.
The whole house consisted of one room:
Next to me, at the wall, was a cupboard made out of wood he found outside, filled with cans, herbs, and other cooking stuff.
The tabletop next to it was made out of schist (there’s SO much schist around Matavenero and Fonfria!), the walls were covered with clay – a common technique I saw in almost every house in the ecovillages I visited – and the color of it matched the color of the six massive beams dividing the ceiling in equal parts, just leaving free a hexagonal spot in the middle…
There, the guy told us, he would put in a glass, so in the night he could see the stars.
So, his bed was directly under the open part of the roof, in the middle of the room.
It was placed on a platform of stones, also plastered with clay and at one side the platform was connected with the oven; so the hot air could flow into the hole under the bed and heat the stones…
At the other side of the bed the platform had a hole in it, tiled with huge schist plates and surrounded by crystals which where buried in the clay.
He had built a pipe system beneath the oven, so water gets heated and flows into the hole, so he was able to take a hot bath.
And if that wasn’t enough: Laying in the bathtub he had an incredible view out of the huge window which was consisting of many small pieces of glass in various triangular and square forms, directly into the wild, green forest!
Even if the whole house construction wasn’t finished back then, I were so impressed and to be honest, I never saw such a beautiful house before; beautiful in every way; built out of recycled material, without money or just a very small amount of money but with so much creativity, talent and patience.

One hour later we were still in the house, sitting there and talking with the guy, he told us about his life up there…
He had built most of the house out of things he found in the ruins or in the nature, for example the crystals and of course all the schist and clay, also some of the woods…
Before he came there, he did train as a gaffer, an occupation he could use well to build windows as he did in his own house and also to help the other people in the village, something that’s very common in all the eco-villages; everyone helps each other:
People exchange their harvest from their gardens or share the milk of their goats, share their skills: Some people are talented in building, some in arts, and there’s also a “garden master”…
Everyone is sharing what he got and in return the others are giving what they got.

I didn’t expect such a community when I came here; people who told me about Fonfria always stressed it’s more a village than a community.
Now, to be honest, after all other places I’ve seen while my journey, it’s one of the places I could imagine to live at for a long time.

Later the guy invited us also to see his garden; he had to harvest some veggies for dinner before darkness.
We went through almost the whole village to his garden, and although I were used to find beautiful gardens in all the ecovillages I’ve been to, this garden was a surprise:
Fonfria is placed up to 1300 meter a.s.l., so it’s up in the mountains, the climate is not that bland because it’s in northern Spain, and it was already the end of September…
So I were really surprised when he gave us some strawberries, totally ripe and super sweet.
While he harvested some veggies, we had a look at his garden, had a stab at some herbs as parsley and basil, then he told us to try a small, inconspicuous plant, called chickweed.
As he told us it’s great for salad and full of important nutrients, so it’s possible to almost only live on chickweed, as he does sometimes.

Finally he went home again to cook and my friend realized it was already too late to head up to  Matavenero today, so he decided to stay…
Sadly we already had eaten all our food (bc we planned to stay just for one night), so we decided to look for some wild veggies and fruits, trying to remember all the knowledge we yet received in the places we’ve been to.
Actually, one hour later we were preparing a soup out of parasol mushrooms and some nettle plants, for dessert we had collected some pears and apples…
That day, I realized once more that it’s really easily possible to live almost without money, even if it means to reduce your desires sometimes.

The next day, my friend left early, while I planned to stay another night in the forest down the hill.
Before I had to fill my bottles with water of the spring up in the village, so I went up there, already hoping that no one would see me, because even if the people here were so lovely, I were afraid of changing my plans again if I would meet someone and get into a talk…
Of course nothing worked out as planned.
When I arrived at the spring, everyone seemed to be there, so I said a short hello, tried not to get involved into a long conversation, and of course it also didn’t work out.
After minutes of talking with a young guy (the garden master the other guy told us about, as I found out) I ended up with an apple, an invitation to come to the collective cooking and brunch in the afternoon at the clay oven, and another invitation to see his garden and his house, and he wondered if someone already had shown me the public bathroom.
As I negated that, he told me to come with him, leaded me through the village to a ruin, not looking at all as if inside was a bathroom.
So I were again surprised as he opened the door…:
I caught sight of a completely equipped bathroom with colorful tiles at the walls, towels, soap and shampoo, a washing machine and a basket filled with free clothes.

But before I took a shower, I went with him, to see his garden.
Again, I expected a lot, but what I saw exceeded all my apprehensions:
There grew all kinds of berries, but also apples, pears, lots of veggies, and he even grew several kinds of cereals, herbs, mushrooms…
Then he showed me his new project: Several kinds of melon, some of them as big as a soccer ball, it was amazing!
As I found out while we were talking, he was growing absolutely all his food on his own:
In summer he had all the fresh food from the garden, for winter he pickled or dried the veggies and fruits he had harvested in summer, cheese and milk he got from his goats, only oil and salt he bought sometimes in the supermarket.

We arranged to meet again in the noon at the clay oven, then I had the probably best shower of my life in the bathroom in the ruin (I didn’t have a shower since days, and no real bathroom since almost a month!).
Afterwards I went to the clay oven, met some more residents of Fonfria, while collecting dry wood around the village for the fire for cooking all the food a young woman had prepared.
More and more people arrived; finally we were around fifteen people, thereof five, six kids, all sitting together in a big circle under a tree and waiting for the veggies to be ready…
I had some interesting talks with many people, especially with a family, also just visiting this place but thinking about spending the whole winter here with their kids.
Usually they spent every winter with their caravan in Nerja, the rest of the year working in Germany.

However, finally the veggies were ready, and we shared all the food and plates, I felt very welcome and so I stayed until we had eaten all the food, from veggies to cake and another cake…
I tried some coffee with milk from the local goats, told the people my plans…and then headed up – really a little bit sad to leave –  to my tent, to remove it and find a good place to spend my night in the forest…

I walked down the terraces until I arrived at the ground of the valley and followed the stream…
After a while walking there, I found a flat terrace up the hill, placed in the afternoon sun, surrounded by hazelnut bushes and the floor covered by sere grass, so I decided to built up my tent there.
That night I decided how I’d travel on and – whereto I’d travel next.

The next morning I woke up early, packed all my stuff and went back to Matavenero without saying goodbye to anyone (I really hate goodbyes!)
Two days later I also left Matavenero to head up to the destination that came to my mind in the night in the forest.

Now, some months after my journey, Fonfria is still on my mind as if I’ve been there just a few days ago…
Even if I met other people living such a life, I rarely met anyone again, so absolutely independent of the government, the system, capitalism…so absolutely free as the people there.

 

 

 

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Matavenero

Almost seven weeks are over, since I started my trip, and I didn’t find any time to write; there were just too many impressions, too much things that happened, and: So many places I want to write about….I really didn’t expect to find that many alternative places on my way…

I went from Madrid directly to Bembibre, San Facundo, Matavenero, and expected me to stay for like one week, or something like that. But finally I spent almost three weeks there, and still didn’t get tired of being there…To be honest, I were thinking about staying there for all the time of my trip, but I’m just too curious about what other places like that are around here in Spain, Portugal…So now I am in Fisterra, in a small Café, writing these lines….(this was 3 weeks before 24.10.18!)

I think, some of you already heard about stuff like ecovillages, communities and house projects in Spain, but for those who’re really new to this subject….

In Spain are over 3000 abandoned villages; some of them are left because of an economic crisis, some because of rural exodus, some because of forest fires…Since a few years, people return to those abandoned villages, build up the ruins again, grow gardens, try to live different than people do in cities, try diverse forms of living, some of them are just trying to live as eco-friendly as possible, some communities are based on a same leading idea, sometimes spiritual, sometimes very practical, but always have in common the idea of living together in a different way, than most people in our capitalistic system.

One of the most popular villages of those is Matavenero, placed in the mountains of El Bierzo.

View from the path up to Matavenero

To get there, I took a Bus to Bembibre, a small city near Leon, from there a Taxi to San Facundo, and finally you have to walk….when I’ve been there last year, I thought the way would be like a few kilometers, not that long, and so I arrived almost in the darkness, so, even if there’s different information on some websites; from San Facundo to Matavenero you’ll need like 2 hours, and it’s a hard way, more like a path, all the time uphill, especially in the end…but it’s worth it; you walk in between beautiful mountains, all the time more or less next to a river, through a forest of oaks, sometimes over fields of rocks…and even if you can’t get the wrong way, there’s a nice map in San Facundo..

Map in San Facundo

So, but that’s all just about how to get there…and I didn’t plan to write that, but as I experienced, it’s pretty hard to get some information about how to get there, and many people who finally ended up there as visitors, found that place accidentally….

Me not. I’ve been there last year for two weeks after I read some information about it in the book “Eurotopia”, a community directory, and on some websites…but there’s not that much information…so all I knew was that it’s a big ecovillage, one of the oldest, up in the mountains.

When you arrive there, you first might be confused about how quiet it is; you don’t hear anything, and you also see a few houses, small stone houses, with wooden roofs, and when you walk on there’s maybe a dog, you see the first crazy house constructions, on the left side you can see a huge valley, the mountains on the other side, big rocks, then some playing children, not even looking at you, because they already are used to meet new people…however, and that’s the first big difference to most other communities which are as big as Matavenero, you just can walk in, say hi, and they’ll show you a place to stay:

There*s the Cocina Comun, a big house, upstairs is the library, and downstairs a room, in the middle an oven, on the left side some mats to sleep, on the right side some places to sit, a table, some shelves with spicery, left over food from visitors who have been here…

But you also can camp, next to the dome.

The dome

Wherever you stay there, it’s for free, and you don’t need to register or something like that or to know how long you want to stay there. It’s not a bad idea to bring a little bit of food with you, even if there’s a lot in the Cocina Comun, like oil, salt, rice, oats…but you never can be sure about it.

For cooking there’s a small gas stoven, also a wood stoven, but no fridge. I always had nice food over there, cooked together with other visitors, or maybe you also get invited by someone living there; people are very friendly, and interested, as soon as you show some interest and they also love to get some help in the garden or with collecting wood, repairing the paths through the village, and other work like that. Usually, in exchange you will receive some vegetables, or get invited for dinner, especially wednesday there’s the community work day; everyone can take part, and do some work in the village, like repairing, building, and after it there’s a community dinner for everyone who helped.

Path through the village, surrounded by chestnut and hazelnut trees.

There live 70 people, some in stone houses, some in wood constructions; there’s a huge diversity of houses; people just built what they wanted to build, and the government just doesn’t care, the only rule, as far as I know, is, to build only new houses in places where has been a ruin. That’s why it’s not that easy to get there and build a new house now, because there are not many ruins left and in every house there are already people living in, at least a part of the year; so there’s also a chance sometimes, to live in a house for some time, if the owner invites you to.

That’s how I spent my almost 3 weeks there; I lived together with a friend (if you read this Ale: right now I’m having all we dreamt of, Cheese and redwine…I’ll never forget our secret code “Y” maybe one day Fonfrìa..) in a house of someone who lives there part-time, and works outside the village for some months. In return we cared for the house, but mostly, to be honest, my friend worked on some parts of the house; repaired some stuff, built a shelf and together we made a fireplace, in front of the house…collected kilos of pears, apples, one time we found out that there were growing mushrooms which you can eat…and also some wild herbs, blackberries, dried cherrys…and that’s how people spend their time up there.

A usual day for us began without a ring, (sometimes for me I put one at 9,10.. bc otherwise I am able to sleep 11 hours, since I am on my trip, whyever..) we woke up, I did yoga for like almost two hours, then we had breakfast; fresh bread, baked by a woman here, honey from a valley in these mountains, mostly from arnica flowers…and, if available, some butter or just a herb pesto or olive oil on the bread…and of course coffee and some tea, collected outside.

Most of the days we were having great talks after the breakfast, sitting next to the window, drinking coffee, eating fruit, sometimes for a few hours, sometimes we had plans, like going to the library, looking around for a map of Spain and Portugal, helping people collecting fruit in the garden, or cutting some plants, building a wall to stabilize the path through the village, whatever…Then again coffee, cookies, often I went to the Cocina Comun in the afternoons to get updated about what’s going on in the village…Later in the evening we often cooked in our place, and a few times we got invited by somebody living there, or just ate together with some visitors in the Cocina Comun. The late evenings, there are  often jam sessions, at least every monday, a drum session around the fire in the middle of the village, and if it’s somebodies birthday, usually there will be a party! Also quiet evenings are not unusual, and some people go to bed early, as they get up early to do some work, before the sun gets really hot. So, normally between 1, 2 p.m. and 5 p.m. it’s pretty calm in the village, as everywhere in Spain, and also because in summer it can get really hot, as soon as the sun shines…and there are not that many trees spending shadow.

Maybe you already wonder, if they have electricity, what about water…and wi-fi?!

Yes, yes and yes, of course they have water, of course they have electricity and also wi-fi!

The water comes from a spring a few kilometres away and flows through the village, and as I heard, but it’s also really logical, the water is the best on top of the village. The water is fresh and everything, but the ph-value is not that good, so some people get problems with their teeth and bones, over the years…and if it’s not raining for a long time, the water may get less, but always enough.

For electricity a lot of the houses have solar panels, and there’s usually enough electricity to have light, charge a phone, ect…

Most people don’t have internet or net in the village with their phones, but as soon as you walk uphill, for example next to the first-aid-place, you’ll get some connection, or at least at the parking, which is placed 10 minutes away, uphill. There’s also the Oficina, in which you’ll find a computer and where you can connect to wi-fi, after you asked somebody for the code, but my experience is, that you’ll completly forget about your phone, maybe only needing it for taking some pictures, or writing down a new contact.

Finally, to give you all important information,…the shower and toilet…Actually there are some simple compost toilets, toilet paper is often rare, so it’s not wrong to bring some with you. For guests there’s also a nice shower, next to the dome, where’s also heated water, if the sun shines.

 

Life up there is of course not as comfortable as in a city or a “normal” village, so you can’t get directly into the village by car, but to the parking, and the next stores are a few kilometres away…but when people go to the city it’s always possible to give them a list of stuff you need, so that’s no problem at all, and great to learn what you really need and to learn to take control about your consumption and not let it control you.

Many people don’t have to buy much food, because they have their own gardens and there’s also a common garden, bread you can get from a woman up there, fresh baken, for five euro, and it’s really delicious. Marmelade, vegetables in oil, tea..is also selled by some people there, as some creams and oils for massages and healing, and also jewelry, postcards…

As you see, there’s everything you need, and everything you have, if you live somewhere else…and even more, because it’s not just eco, there exist also some community projects, houses…like the Cocina Comedor, where everyone can eat, if people cook there, the Cocina Comun, where you can stay for free, can use some stuff for cooking, play some instruments, that are in there…Above there’s a library, full of many good books, and next to it a room with secondhand clothes for free, but you have to ask for the key. And, there’s one more important house; the school, one of the biggest houses, and yes, there’s a real teacher, the only person in the village, that gets paid for it’s work.

All other people earn money in different ways…some of them sell stuff to tourists, some work outside the village, others get money from the government (old people, people with kids..) and the whole village gets money of  the government too, because of the wind generators around, that are placed on the ground of Matavenero, so the government pays for that.

However, you don’t need much money up there; electricity and water are for free, and also a lot of food grows in the gardens and nature around.

But there’s even some more, that makes this place a community; there’s a plenum, normally once a week and also the community work.

And, as you can feel when you’re there, people share a peaceful, openminded way of living, and live the lifes, they want to live, in (I really would call it) anarchy; there exist no real rules, do what you want, as long you don’t restrict the freedom of somebody else and everybody feels well.

 

 

If you have some more questions, text me!

And if you now a place that might be interesting for me to visit (in Spain, Portugal or Morocco) feel free to tell me about it!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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About

Since a few years, it seems like every young human being needs to go on a travel after school, just to see the world, right before starting to study, getting a job, work, you know, just before starting it’s great life in this system, consisting of work, holiday, consumption, getting a house and a family, and then they die, without ever have been alive.

So, trust me, I’m not gonna let this be another travel blog about that crazy thing I ate today in Asia or about what I did the whole day in country xy.

I’ll try to write as less as possible about stuff no one of you wants to know, because I want this blog to be a source of information and impressions for those who want to know something about….

…Ecovillages, house projects, political actions, communities, in Spain, Portugal and Morocco.

I’m starting my trip at the 5th september in Madrid, from where I’ll go in direction of Santiago de Compostela, looking around for people living out of the system, visiting ecovillages, house projects….sometimes I’ll wwoof….then I’ll move down to Portugal, Morocco, and finally to the Canary Islands.

So, the most important thing for me on this trip is to discover places, where people try alternative ways of living, places, where there’s no repression or less repression and where people resist the government. Also, I want to use as less money as possible and support capitalistic structures as less as possible, means: Not buying stuff from big companies, not sleeping in hotels, but trying to couchsurf and camp, and also, to wwoof (= to help on organic farms, and substitutional you get a place to sleep and food), not using social media that collects your data, and so on…

However, I’m writing this blog to show people, it’s possible, to live out of the capitalistic system, to resist, to fight against repression, neo-liberalism, sexism, fascism, exploitation of nature and humans! And there are already thousands of us, living in anarchist communities, independent villages, living without money, trying so many different forms of living together, and if we connect, we are stronger than the actual system of repression, exploitation and hate, if we connect, we can change everything.