Travel to Austria and then back with Lea and Spektral

I managed to escape the clutches of the evil Munich and was soon enroute to the Austrian countryside.But not before I got searched by the reputedly over-fussy southern German cops. A big smile on my face i commented it would be nice of them to chase some real criminals to which they replied that they doubted they could. Soon their brand-new unmarked VW whisked them away surely on the way to catch out someone else who looked different and acted differently to the norm.
I eventually got to the frontier near Salzburg and there i stood trying different spots for a good four hours, my patience wearing thin as the hours progressed and the day grew darker and colder. I eventually engaged a couple of farmers who i encouraged to take me to near Graz where they said they were staying. This turned out to be 200km from Graz and the petrol station they were to leave me at was a deserted isle of light in the midst of dark trees lining the Alpine foothills. I found some food to eat and then searched out what felt like a quiet place sandwiched between a railway and a river. Of course it was all extremely quiet as i set up and it wasnt until i settled and had just pulled up my sleeping bag when suddenly i hear a hooting and feel electricity running through my feet just before a heavy cargo train speeds noisily by. I struggled the rest of the night through the continuous sporadic bouts of speeding trains, like a prisoner of war awaiting his periodical moment of torture with grudgingly exhausting acceptance.
The next day i awake, walk around, take soame pics and then walk over to the supermarket just when some guy calls me over and offers to take me to graz after seeing the sign i was grasping. If only things were always this easy!!! I arrive in graz after an interesting chat with my croatian host. Soon i am back in spektral and then meeting lea and life is good. The sun shone for the next three days as life seemed good. Walking and talking with lea was a glee as always though she looked more distant than other times and Flo was different. New friendships and cool times followed and i cant complain that here in Graz life was good with the Spektral alternative centre being the key to a new community.

The Germans rocked me, despite the fact that i didnt know german!

It was strange to come back to mundane rainy England after all the near tropical fanfare of Florida, USA. I was soon off to Berlin where I wanted to see some friends from last year and this was something special. I enjoy the openness of the Germans where people strive to speak English to you even when they are not so fluent and where women are as independent as men in the pursuance of their life goals. I missed the anti-fa and alternative scene here, where students see it as their responsibility to protest for their rights and march in favour of the environment and stand up against the terrible spectre of a rising Neo-nazi faction especially in the eastern regions. I hearkened back to our fun times with Robert and Henry and we had more adventures with these guys. After a few days chilling with my straight-talking friend Kati in Friedrichshain, including a stay in a feminist lesbian woman-only squat known as the XB Liebig where I met some fabulously open people and others who were incredibly insular, I was able to venture north, hitching to Hamburg where there were holding the clima camp. .... I wrote this report for a newspaper so I think you may have already seen it and it best describes the feelings I felt there.

I was a time of learning and of interesting conversations and also set me up to meet other people in the south of Berlin, especially in a small community a few kms south of the capital where I stayed in a chilled community house in a small village where I could feel at home picking up potatoes from the backgarden plot of land or wild herbs to sweeten our salad by the river with this acquantance and her young child. It was strange to feel the calm of the countryside with its leisurely pace and its sound of silence, loveable dogs coming to greet you and old buildings covered in ivy. Sitting there pondering I could see this kind of life becoming my future as a more thriving community model would be an interesting way in which to gratify some hopes and desires.

The next step was a hitch to Leipzig, which went really smoothly and I was able to stay with some friends in the city for a while I also met in the clima camp. Hanging with this couple in their house was fun, despite a few mishaps like a stolen bicycle and the fact they were moving away. Meeting up with some other people from the hamburg camp I was able to find this party in the forest, by a lake under a road-bridge after cycling through dark tracks alone with very little sense of where I was going. The party was well-worked as I can expect from the Germans showing they do not only talk a lot, they also act a lot and put a lot of effort into their activity. It all ended prematurely when the police arrived to shut it down but I was so impressed that everyone seemed so eager to help clear up at the end, despite their alcohol and drug-induced stupor, everyone running around with plastic bags to collect the rubbish, probably leaving the invisible under part of the bridge cleaner than when we first arrived. Within an hour we were off, cycling and walking around town as we got followed by drunken hormone-driven men as we tried to head to the park for the after-party. It was a long road but we finally made it and after some minimal techno we were able to watch the sun rise even staying once the police had arrived to see one of the sunniest days of my German sojourn, while I hung out with a cool possible future travel partner draped in the hot afternoon sun while the grass crept around our feet.

More days of indulgence followed in another park with a jungle party and with some new found friends in different places. I finally concluded that Leipzig was one of the coolest places in Germany, with open people and interesting vibes, perhaps more inclined towards students and leisure than the creativity and activism of Berlin but still a comfortable place to live and grow more in touch with those around you on a more regular basis. It was cool to see these people though many times I yearned to get closer to them by being able to speak their mother tongue, so much so that I vowed to return one day and learn to speak so I could participate in their logical conversation and contribute to their ideological exchange.

Now I find myself in Munich after one unsuccessful day of hitching in the rain from Leipzig. I returned to my couchsurfer in Leipzig with my tail between my legs almost ready to use some other form of paying transport for the 400km trip south to the much-maligned Munchen, but I persevered through more rain the next day and after 2 hours of frustration decided to get the next lift onto the A9 even it was towards Berlin. A cool guy hesitatingly picked me up, before going out of his way to drop me at the petrol station heading south. From there it was plain sailing. A VW T3 campervan with some young guys picked me up and drove me 250km south to Nuremberg taking me a bit further than they were going to leave me at the next petrol station and after that the coolest, warmest and most open guy I met for a while who actually worked for the IBM multinational as he tried to escape the mainstream social system drove me all the way to my destination. I stayed with a girl I met by coincidence in south spain in a lovely wooden house near the centre of Munich and partied last night beside a sculpture of a naked guy. The party was innovative because everyone had to bring their own stereo with the DJ plugging his disks into an ipod radio transmitter which was then augmented by using an aerial and sent to other nearby stereos on a hijacked frequency. It was such a cool idea and though people were more snobbish and closed-minded than the other 3 cities I'd visited it was still fun, with some interesting meetings and then a crazy cycle to a wagenplatz (improvised caravan park) to go to sleep at the invitation of some more clima camp companions I found spontaneously onsite.

I need to go now as I will stay there the night again and meet up with some cool guys I met at the clima camp and have arranged to meet with.


This time was enjoyable and I felt right at home among all the caravaners. Their little camp at the end of this parking was colourfully and intricately decorated, no doubt with remnants of parties and passers-by. It was quaint with Mercedes campers as well as larger trailers with a nice sense of community full of travellers and more permanent people. We hung out and played a game for a while and soon went to sleep in a van they offered me for the night. The next day, a slow breakfast helped me get on my way after which I eventually managed to leave for Austria. I knew it was late tho and I would probably not make it...

What do Portugal, north spain and florida have in common?

Three weeks ensued when I fixed up my van and passed it through the MOT before I started the long road north on my LT28 to north Spain with an Israeli girl called Hadar who wanted to share the trip with me. It proved good to get some surf in Algarve and meet up with Marc who I had also met in Morocco while in the east we found some interesting eco-farm communities caught up among traditional villages which celebrated their patron saints with style, inviting us to a party with local produce for everyone called Santiago (and us, who weren't). We then continued the road to Leon, the mountainous province where we would be at the rainbow gathering for Spain. Having been there getting to know travellers from around the world was a real privilege though the esoteric nature admittedly put me off a bit as usual. Too much energies and Mayan calendars for my liking...

After two weeks oscillating between the camp and the town to do my work on the internet, these good times came to an end as we danced around fires naked or performed dramas, ran to rainbows hand-in-hand and saw some beautiful sunrises, swam naked in a nearby lagoon, or hung around farting and squirting liquid shit from our vegan-only arses.

Moving west with a motley crew of an Israeli couple and two Slovenians for company we connected with some couchsurfers in La Coruna through the msn and that same night hung out with one of the coolest guys I met. Oscar took all of us into his home for five memorable days never without a dull moment as his music-making and reggae-DJing took us into another dimension. With Patrik from Hamburg who was also Csing with us and his cool neighbour Ana we spent some great days and nights enjoying the Galician warmth of personality. After that we went to the Ortigueira festival, a folk festival which has very little to do with that if you do like most people and head for the forested area on the beach and party all night among tripping young people and various food and ornament stalls. The beach area was particularly spectacular, a small islet floating in the middle of this serene bay with a perfect mouse-sized A-frame breaking in the middle of it – a perfect spot to watch the sun rise or set.

In the end time caught up with me and I had to drive to Gijon, Asturias to leave my van with a surfboard maker (shaper) friend and then catch a bus back to Santiago to catch a ryanair flight to Liverpool at zero euros (plus 40e of taxes of course). Getting there at midnight and hanging with some cool Poles in the airport until morning I arrived bang on time that same morning at my brother Mark's graduation. It was cool to see him graduate with his classmates and along with the rest of the family enjoyed the ceremony while chilling in a beautiful countryside cottage in the countryside. Of course, it was impossible to get there but after some miracles managed to arrive there where we stayed for a whole day and left the next morning with a hire car to drive the family down to a slightly impromptu holiday in Florida, our first time to cross the pond to our much maligned superpower 'ally'.

Getting there we found the Americans to be much more agreeable than I expected, incredibly open, warm and friendly. They were particularly charmed by English accents and it was a pleasure to meet different echelons of society from varying backgrounds. From the rural dwelling Bible-belt Bush-fanatical family we stayed with to the arty single mum of 2 in the city, I found people who had a generally healthy outlook on life.

There were many immigrants from Latin America, many of whom were not even able to speak English and each with their own story to tell – one rowed for 11 days in a self-made dinghy across the Gulf of Mexico from Cuba to get to the US by crossing through its only southern land border. Maybe the USA gets judged too harshly and looking at it from their standpoint its easy to see how they can get imperialistic, arrogant and naïve to other interests. Their military power is such and their infrastructure is so advanced on every level, from communications network to financial freedom to quality of life it must be easy to forget the rest of the world exists and that they have to care about anything apart from their own feelings like the rest of the Western world. Even issues like global warming and the global distribution of wealth must be so inconsequential to them they are unable to grapple with the concepts involved. I suppose it is a common evil for us in Europe, the Middle East and other countries to demonize them to excuse our own behaviour even on a private level. But the truth is we are just as bad as them and its also possible that some of their interventionism is also based on an idea of getting their hands bloody so that other countries can have a system that is more like theirs. I however cannot just stand by their super-consumerist culture which I found so awkward and unfamiliar, even among the alternative crowd, while the social tensions found in the ghettos are clearly the crunching point of social degradation which makes America a much more racist country than other systems in Europe, even though the nation is inherently an immigrant-populated country which is now closing the door to this stream of open hands.

But on the whole it was good to see some people confronting some of the issues and being open in heart and mind to listen what we had to say. Perhaps ignorance is bliss after all but how can you change a blissfully ignorant nation anyway, if bliss is what everyone wants?

Climate campers hit Hamburg

I got bored of writing in the past and thought i would post my latest report i am using on the net from the clima camp in Hamburg. Just to give you a background, I went to Berlin after USA family holiday and then heading around Europe!

Everything had frozen. I stood there with my heart in my mouth waiting to see what would happen next.

The police had given us the three customary warnings to leave after a legal demonstration and we had obeyed under threat of arrest. We moved out in a group, knowing the customary tactics of dividing the group that the German riot police liked to conduct. But suddenly they had charged. Around 30 riot police had rushed headlong into us with batons drawn and eyes bearing on us with provocative intent.

We were nearing the end of the German Clima Camp based from a field in north Hamburg.

The idea of the Clima Camp had been birthed in England and after a few years seasoned campaigners like Tadzio Mueller had imported the idea to Germany, traditionally the home of a sizeable active radical left community.

The idea, like its successful counterpart in Southeast England, was to highlight the problems that increased energy consumption was having on global climate change as well as the problems migrants faced when trying to settling in our beloved EU. Tired of ineffectual lobbying against these multi-national corporations with much more financial muscle and therefore influence, the growing consensus was towards direct action. This included, like in the Kent camp, a protest against a coal power station, namely Hamburg's facility in Moorburg, which is currently under construction and one against the airport and its

At first the police presence was scant as they took a backseat in our primary welcoming demonstration, and then were in small numbers at the second big demo outside a low-cost Aldi supermarket in the city centre, the latter in favour of fair trade products. We would then retreat to our camp, where a huge itinerary of informative workshops and debates were running throughout the ten days we camped there.

Then came the turning point. In order to make our presence felt we decided to take our march to a residential site near Moorburg which would be directly affected by the presence of the coal power station. But instead of remaining there, a decision was made to march on the power station itself. This meant that there would be a clear route towards the station itself and there would be no police to overcome. Hurrying along the streets waving flags and chanting songs, our 300-strong body surged towards the building site, only to be intercepted by riot police coming from behind us to thwart our advance.

However, they were powerless to stop two teams getting into the site and hoisting a banner on a crane and staying in place for a full five hours before being arrested. Others blockaded the entrance to the site, a van providinig the music as we danced in the ring formed by our amour-clad, growling 'spectators'. In the end they stopped our spontaneous action for another ridiculous reason: “This is no longer a demo, it is a party; and you need a separate permit for a party. If you don't go home, we will arrest you!” They then proceeded to remove people forcibly as they sat stubbornly at the entrance to the complex, while others decried their democratic rights in uproarious disapproval.

On the Friday was the demonstration at the airport and we were equally mistreated. One group of around 60 was arrested in entirety, solely for blocking one of the many arteries leading to the airport. The police, now smiling smugly, surrounded the protesters before rounding up the whole group and bussing them off to the cell for a few hours before releasing them unceremoniously after the humiliation. Another group of 300 carried out an 'action' in Terminal 1, where, by means of theatre and music they complemented the main march outside which was again heavily cordoned off by the police. We had evaded capture while marching with the first group and later it was at this main march where the police had charged us.

The silence in those moments seemed to last forever as we questioned the integrity of a democratic system we vehemently criticised as being undemocratic. But for that small matter of minutes we were hoping the strands of freedom of expression that remained would sustain our right to leave the site of the action. And so it was to be. With the press cameras cataloguing the police action deemed inappropriate by our mobile PA system they finally capitulated and fell back allowing us to march to the metro station still clasped arm in arm in solidarity.

The next day the police reacted with more fury, using water cannon to disperse a second march on Moorburg, the rain driving not only vertically but also horizontally in what is one of the wettest regions in Germany.

Many people learned that to exercise the freedom to protest it was necessary to test that freedom and that to push for change was never an easy struggle. But more than anything we made a stand, and as we had come to know, the fight is only lost when we stop fighting.

Now there are plans in motion to start a climate camp in Spain next summer as a prelude to a big meeting of climate campaigners in Copenhagen in September 2009 to coincide with the most important UN Climate Conference to be held since Kyoto. Interested individuals wishing to be part of this movement should contact climatecampspain@gmail.com.

Moroccan desert adventure continues...

Two days later we had them returned except this time with the car having signed out two days before we were going to leave. Most people at this stage fly out so as to have a different exit point but my stubborn refusal to do so because of the 350e ticket to france meant that I would have to leave from the same exit, this time by way of a lift from a German guy with a Mercedes Unimog army 4x4 monster vehicle converted for travelling. Theo and his adopted doggie he had found in the desert in a little hole where he had buried his own pup who was killed in 10 minutes by poison (a marvellous story) said he was going north to Agadir and I could go with him. We managed to cross the first hurdle at the frontier with relative ease, our police contacts having phoned in advance of our imminent arrival. We had even surpassed our 3-day visa by 2 days but it seemed to be no problem as the customs officers stamped us out in their wooden shed with barely a question being raised. Sitting there breathing the air of freedom as we drove easily across the sand-traps of no-man's land in our monster vehicle with metre high wheels and about half a metre of clearance from the ground, we arrived back in Morocco with the sense of coming home.

We then carried on north after a night in Dahkla at our steady 70km/h speed along the only road with signs on its side warning about mines from the 10-year war Morocco waged with the democratically elected Saharaui pro-independence forces of the Polisario, a war only halted by UN peacekeepers and now a ceasefire again in the balance.

After miles of emptiness as far as the eye could see on all sides we arrived in Laayoune and from there tried to take a more interesting route inland through the desert. Stopping in Smara for a night we ate fish and burgers before changing a wheel in the heat of the day and watching troops land in the airport as the military build-up on the frontier continued. We then elected to take our journey into the unknown to near the perilous eastern frontier with Algeria and Tindouf where 200,000 Saharaui refugees now live.

According to the map there was a dirttrack there and at first all was good as we marched onwards along what seemed like a newly-paved road, inevitably to transport munitions for another possible war with sworn-enemy Algeria and the Polisario they backed. But soon we found the road ran out and even the tracks wore thin and divided into all sorts of directions. Postulating in our pot-induced slowness we sought what seemed the most logical route trying to head east all the time. Humming through white sandy plains and up craggy mountain ranges, we felt the loneliness of adventure, our chess games in the Sahara forcing us into brain activity which was sometimes hard to muster.

In the end we came across our road and sure enough we found the military base we were looking for. The only thing was that here we were the only tourists and suddenly, in their state of alert they questioned our veracity. After being escorted by a police truck north to a small village now out of bounds to anyone without military credentials we were questioned thoroughly by the chief of police somewhere on these lines:

“Are you part of an organisation or other association? Are you spies?”

“Err... no,” was our answer as we wrestled with a hunger garnered from not eating all day as we sped to our destination before nightfall. Having realised we were quite innocent they let us catch a bite before becoming the first tourists to sleep in that town for three years. I even managed a great conversation with an interesting educated policeman with a perfect English accent at his lonely post at the entry to this town. We spent the night by the post and then carried on north through some more villages and the undertaking further off-roading through a wondrous valley as the sun set on us lighting the peaks around us in a heart-warming red glow. We fought confusion again and finally arrived at the road we were looking for proceeding through the mountains to the tourist town of Tafrout and then northwest along the ridges of the anti-Atlas toward Agadir. There, we spent some good times with Soufi and his skater friends, as well as my brother who was in the area before heading north alone with my backpack and surfboard tucked under my arm to Imsouanne, a beautiful fishing enclave with some of the most perfect longboard waves there is. Having arrived at this paradisical still under-exploited spot I was walking around in the carpark and was greeted by an Austrian guy with a full-size motor-caravan. After smoking together and getting annihilated at chess he invited me to sleep there where I hung out for a week in the end, passing away the hours catching perfect long rides on borrowed longboards and eating donated sardines from our pro-rainbow Mohamed in his tiny beachside restaurant. All too soon it was time to leave and Europe beckoned with an opportunity to get some writing work with my cousin on a website. I got a trip to Casablanca with some cool French couple and then headed to Rabat where I stayed with an American guy who had managed to go, even out with a Moroccan princess before deciding their weakness for coke wasn't really his thing. We went to a wild diplomatic pool party with other foreigners and prostitutes hanging around innocuously and then spent a day chilling before catching a coach to Tangiers from where I took the ferry straight home to Gibraltar.

Morocco and Mauritania (part 4)

If you are reading this its not really happening but you can still get captivated by the tension - just use your imagination i suppose! hehe!

This time I headed south my mind made up to go to Mauritania. It had been a plan before but some pangs of doubt had made me dither. The plan was to sell the car but the length of the journey and the insecurity of whether we would get a buyer made me think twice. But buoyed by the film success and the confirmed company on the trip of Mohamed and Henry who had arrived recently from Germany, the adventure was on.

Leaving behind the civilization of Agadir and after another memorable stop in Taroudant to see Khalid, we set off south soon getting to the gate of the Sahara, otherwise known as Goulmime. From there we set off through the immensity of the desert plains through Tan-Tan where Med showed us that he was a keen footballer as well as a stoner. I don't think me or Henry had ever seen him move so fast!! We then ate some harira soup and headed south. We stayed with Med's cousin in Laayoune a night, filled with army personnel and secret police. I am told the UN base there is fully tapped and that their work is altogether hampered by Morocco. (Historical Note. Morocco occupied the territory peacefully when 300,000 people walked into the area in what has been called the Green March. Ten years of war ensued with the unofficially elected government of the Western Sahara, the Polisario being backed by Morocco's neighbour, Algeria. An uneasy peace was reached under the tenure of the UN and still holds to this day, though 200,000 refugees in Tindouf and increasing human rights violations by Morocco on the native Saharauis have the Polisario on the brink of war again).

We rode the next few police checkpoints where the cops ask you your job to check if you are not a journalist (as if you would tell them at all!) and also to make sure you don't die in the desert. We never had any real problems and getting to Dahkla at night a fruitless search for a hostel for 2 hours led to us sleeping at the beach outside town. Some drives around town and a day more at the beach and soon it was time for the guys to head back to Ouarzazate. We embraced and I headed south, alone...

Obviously I am not as good a timekeeper as I would like to be and I soon found that out to my chagrin as I got to the last filling up station a bit too relaxed!! My casual style showed me up as I decided I would have no time to reach the border where I was to sell my car. I then decided to visit a nearby fishing village which was prettily endowed with colourful fishing boats straddled on the seashore and its own cute little harbour to shelter it from a passing storm. Soon. I started chatting to the local nurse and he got me in touch with the naval officer in charge of the port. Between them they furnished me with a sizey fresh fish and a homemade barbie. I put them to good use outside my car and put up my tent, staying right beside their quarters and overlooking the beach. Cooking the fish, which I ate with bread and oil, I thought how lucky I was and soon was in deep sleep again.

The next morning I awoke and having said goodbye set off for the frontier, but not before a long walk over the dunes which was fascinating apart from the rubbish strewn across them unfortunately habitual along Morocco's coastline. After stopping to check a few more things and getting offered more money I drove to the frontier arriving there with an hour to go before they shut the frontier for the night. That meant I ended up chatting to some of the taxi-drivers and getting invited to tea as I started to gel in to my surroundings and find a spot to sleep for the night. I thought if I gave myself the whole day it would bode well for selling the vehicle in the no man's land and then returning.

It was then that I met a really cool French couple who had just come from hitching through Senegal and Mali. I took to them right away, as I do quite easily with the French travellers, who are clearly the coolest, especially in Francophone countries, and soon we were chatting and laughing into the night as we sat eating some food donated to us by the Moroccan military at the border control.

The next morning I would have returned with them northwards if I had only sold the Clio at the frontier, for which I was immediately offered 5000 dirhams. I rose the price to 6000 after this endless tactic of just shaking your head and walking away only for the prospective buyer to come running back and offer you a higher price. It works both ways for buying and selling I suppose, except they are the ones who do the running all the time.

We carried on this process encouraged by a Senegal-residing French expat obviously making big money with a brand new humvee waiting for him at the frontier on his way to Marrakesh.

In the end we got stuck at 5000dirhams and I thought I would make my decision at the no-man's land itself as I awaited it with a mixture of apprehension and excitement. A land without law or identity seemed to encourage my furtive imagination but as I went through yet another control I met a Moroccan guy who was to change my direction altogether. Proposing I drive with him to Nouakchott, the Mauritanian capital, he said he would get me the best price. I was soon convinced and as we passed through the frontier he brokered the deal at 650 euros, at least a third more than what I was going to receive from the other guy. All we had to do was pass the frontier (itself a time-consuming process as these big black customs officers in army apparel badgered me about offering me a measly 300 euros for the car) and then drive to the capital. After driving through endless desert that spanned on all sides for 400km we got to the capital of the relatively new country of Mauritania.

Here we were greeted with machine-gun toting soldiers looking for escaped terrorists. Without insurance we were feeling awkward until our inside police contact met with us at the first of three checkpoints and in his long flowing white Saharaui robes indicated for us to follow him. Getting waved through the controls we were eventually led to a hostal where we were given the cash and had our passports confiscated.

Morocco part 3

I know this story is long but i think it has to be told!!

These sort of questions played upon us again as one of the Moroccans (there was a whole band from the local villages, most of them teachers posted there from the bigger cities and also a young, musical and open throng from Agadir and Taroundant) stole some stuff one night. I had been taking an unusual nap in my tent that evening and I awoke to hear much commotion in the camp. The main fire (central meeting and eating point) was vibrant to the sound of conversation and argument. Three backpacks had been stolen alright, but nobody knew who had done it. Suddenly a place we had felt so safe at was not so secure anymore, the eerie silence around us breaking our confidence. We huddled around the fire in defensive fear as the local Moroccan huddled around in their own version of a local inquest. Mohamed was eventually cited as the culprit as he had left earlier than everyone else and his house would be searched in the morning, the villagers agreed. Mohamed was one of those crazier locals who made a lot o

I was altogether relieved nothing of mine had been stolen as everything was in my tent, well ... except my car keys who I had left to my Israeli travel companion Kermit (yeah, poor girl with the name of the most famous frog in the world) and so I went to get them and guess what? Yeah, you guessed it. She had the bag stolen they were in. I was gutted as I had no spares. The next day we tried to get in and once we did started hacking away at my ignition with the help of a retired mechanic. After an hour of hacking with a knife the inevitable happened. The villagers with some Rainbow family came back from Mohamed's home with most of the stuff and the keys themselves. We tried the keys and of course, the mechanic had broken the ignition beyond recognition. He reassured me and said in the name of his honour he would repair it successfully. I meandered off unable to stand it any longer. Sneaking a few peeks I saw them dismantle the steering wheel area until all that remained was a huge hole where it used to be. I winced and inside could see them coming to me with typical Moroccan apathy saying that they couldn't fix it. Maybe they were even working in collaboration with the thief... With my stomach all over the place and my thoughts driving me to the point of delirium I returned an hour later to find the car back in a perfect state with only the steering lock disabled. I was eternally grateful as his reluctance to charge for a few hours hard work showed me there are good people in Morocco too.

I left a few days later with some other guys but Mohamed struck again not longer after. Returning to the fire remorseless the night after his antics he was welcomed with hugs and conversation I found it hard to conjure. But around a week later he took another bag I was told later. This time he stole around 1000 dollars in travellers cheques and taking it with him to cash them in Agadir was tracked down and had his bus stopped in the mountains got headbutted by a Rainbow guy, (lightly they say) and then stripped down to nakedness where they found the cheques in his underpants. He was clearly a screw loose because after all he did he went to the police to say they had assaulted him. Of course, everyone testified to Mohamed's crimes and the police decided to throw him in prison for a couple of years. His father tried to avert the family shame by paying the theft victim a large sum of money estimated to be around 1000euros but when they went up to the station the police decided to chuck him into prison anyway and the money was used to reimburse everyone that had stuff stolen and then still had enough to pay for a lovely mule for the donkey caravan across the Anti-Atlas which around 15 Rainbowers participated in.

By the time of the happenings I was in Agadir hanging out with Soufian and his friend. After a few nights of living with their kind families we drove to Imsouanne, a great little surf spot north of Agadir and Taghazout where most surfers hang out. We surfed though the swell was too big on the point and not west enough to empty into the bay, frustratingly enough. We didn't stay there long and knowing Cap Sim would be firing drove up to this fickle but high quality point break only to see it firing but being too exhausted to surf it, mentally and physically. I just sat on the hill above it snapping some pics which was fun as it was pretty crowded and I wasn't in form.

After that we headed to Essaouira with Soufian's relatives there and even a house his granny owned before she died. I stayed one more weekend in Cap Sim living in a cave with my friend Marc who I had also met in the Rainbow awaiting a big swell to surf the point again. On Sunday it worked again but Marc trashed his board on the rocks and I was still struggling with my fitness and antagonised by the cold Northerlies which kicked in a bit too early this year, ended up paddling out with only two people surfing perfect waves.

Driving south with the boys I soon ended up in Agadir again driving around with these two skaters like homies patrolling their neighbourhood. We surfed a bit and ate some good food including the excellent grilled sardines and it was good to be there enjoying the good life and sleeping for free while the sun shone merrily for us every day. After that I decided to go to Ouarzazate to see a friend called Mohamed I had met the the year before through couchsurfing. On the way I visited Taroudant where I hung out with ever so cool Khalid who I also connected a lot with. Pretending to be a beggar in the street, visiting his friends throughout the souk and slurping delicious avocado juices made my stop great fun and soon I was back in Ouarzazate with Med, whose intelligent conversation and observation kept me entertained, his brokenness after not being granted a visa for Europe and his dependence on hash making me wince. I squatted his dad's new house, with many times just me alone in this 3-storey monstrosity, his parents refusing to move out of a neighbourhood they knew. I hung out with Med's escapist friends whose French expat companions bought whisky at nights and laced with hashish spent evenings hidden away from the public eye under lavishly decorated shops selling lamps and fossils to tourists.

Then came the breakthrough I had been waiting for – a job in the cinema industry. It was only a day but it was so much fun dressed as a French soldier being ambushed by Berber raiders in the middle of the desert. They shaved off my beard but I fought them off when they tried to touch my dreads. They called security in as I fought the scissors with all my heart until they finally ceded and just pinned it all in under my standard issue French foreign legion hat. My uniform on we marched into the desert and I even was deemed trustworthy enough to carry a loaded gun, with blanks fair enough, but still heaps of fun. I fired and my spent cartridges went everywhere. All the realism and we could repeat it around 10 times. At the end I got a bit bored and with a French friend we swapped sides. That ended up being the final shot and I don't think anyone noticed our little switch.

Those French guys really made it special too. Their black humour had me in stitches when I caught it so when after the shoot they told us we would have to return in the afternoon for another go for more money I agreed without hesitating. More laughs and more antics eventually led to the evening coming and a healthy 75 euros being given to us. We smoked and talked that night and a couple of days later I was gone and never saw them again.

f noise but not much positive input.

morocco part 2

ok, my blog is living my past!! but here goes!

So there we were, four Westerners dragging a car in a very third world way. The girls responded marvellously and that is one thing I have to say for rainbow people. They don't complain much, adapt easily and can still smile through it all. Just as well, because before long we were stranded on the side of the road without lights in the middle of the night and still not starting properly. At the mercy of some Moroccans at this cafe, we sat resignedly inside the car, trying hard to just keep positive at this early stage of the trip. I even thought I saw fearless Anka frown with frustration. Help came soon, though, some of the people outside responding to our plight and after checking a few things found one of the fuses to be burnt out, meaning that the ignition plus the lights were impaired. With a small wire we were on our way, in awe that such a small thing could bring to a halt something so big. We stopped the first night at a rivermouth in Kenitra, the girls just sleeping their first night in the North African country outside on the river's side while I, cowardly expecting a swarm of masked pillaging midnight raiders, squashed in the backseat of the Renault Clio. In the morning a cool guy with a little overgrown rat of a dog, invited us to his house, where we ate some food and got some of the local produce. Then we moved on south to Safi where cool couchsurfer guy Hicham was waiting for us at his parents' abode.

It was good to be there with those three very independent and happy girls in a culture which barely recognises their rights on a an equal plain to men. They were always so keen to connect with Hicham's mum and another visitor from France that they made the whole 3 or 4 day stay go by really quickly with me even managing to score a pretty hefty session surfing lefts near Safi that left me feeling the need to get back into the water after nearly a whole year of surf inactivity.

The girls also attended a wedding celebration where they danced away with other guests, shopping around town for djellabas and making new friends along the way.

Soon, however, it was time to head to the rainbow and in a beautiful journey where it actually rained upon us and the girls played guitar and sang joyfully for the whole length of the trip we finally got to our destination after encircling through various windy roads, a militarily controlled dam and various impossible speed bumps that had us all squealing for pain as the undercarriage clanged again and again. Actually finding the rainbow was also a mini-miracle, our map being wrong and only a memory jog from Anka helping us to realise that what we were seeing outside corresponded to what we were headed for. The little village 16km from Immouzer with the bridge and the turn-off 200m to the left were all there and all we needed to do was take them. We did and arrived at a parking where some over-welcoming locals told us to confide the car in their capable hands. Reticently I followed them and soon found the rainbow family hidden deep in the valley.

For anyone who hasn't been in a Rainbow, they are normally unique encampments in the middle of nowhere with very little in the way of modern commodities and as plain living as possible, very little electrical use (mobiles and even torches are frowned upon) and water is normally drawn from a spring, with the nearest one here being around 4km walk away meaning a dozen of us had to trek off at least every other morning to fill our bottles and carry them back on our bare backs. Food was clearly cheaper than other places though we couldn't count with recycling of course which is sometimes an option in European rainbows. Buying en masse at Moroccan souks was a funny experience as few expect us tourists to be doing anything other than minor food purchases at most.

I think the French travellers just get on so well there as their home language is so widely spoken that they really almost run the show. It's a mischievous thought because I love those guys to bits but sometimes I feel they step into the colonial shoes of their forefathers who conquered most of West Africa. They have no fear, but just authority and the sort of short-tempered snappiness you would expect of a colonial master at times, treating the Moroccans a bit as if they were barking up the wrong tree. Maybe I read it wrong and its just confidence. Then again, everyone asked if I was French so I think I will pitch for this last interpretation. I suppose as Westerners among a people so dying to achieve the wealth and freedoms our forefathers fought so hard for which then we turn down so easily makes us feel kind of superior. How can we value individuals who seek what we have turned down and which for them is so easy to achieve if they were not so greedy in the first place. Or are we worse, seeking to devolve our way of life only for the sakes of environmental or spiritual reasons when we should just settle for our decisions?

Maroc rocks my winter again

Yeah, I defo love the getaway of Morocco!! When circumstances in Europe are looking like they could get you down and you are dragged into the dredgery of day-to-day life as my van got fixed there is nothing like the energy of three young Rainbow girls to push you into an another North African adventure!
As winter closed in over Southern Europe (if you live in northern Europe you can laugh at me at this point) and the chilly temperatures of 10C threatened to sink me into depression, i stepped aboard the ferry which would take me back to the land of the tagine and the righthand pointbreak.
Stepped would be the operative word as my non-starting car was pushed by me and three Rainbow girls i had met at an alternative colony near Nerja's touristic beaches onto the ferry! Much to the bemusement of the customs officers it was the same story as we rolled out of ceuta into morocco with the developing world looking on as we struggled in our 'developed' way to get into the country which so desired our status.

From Barcelona, thru Uk and central Europe to Spain - a true odyssey!!

okk
i know, i know i have been really really lazy with my blog thingy! But I have a good excuse- I have been meandering the globe in search of understanding and community and finding adventures I never imagined, beautiful people and a whole new sense of myself. (then again maybe thats not such a good excuse....)
You have probably read all these before but in benefit of those who haven't I am going to paste in some of the group emails I sent since my Barcelona sojourn and then after that (probably tomorrow... I am knackered today) attempt to recap the last four months!


Okay first step... I flew to England via France and then worked there for a month and hang around for another... to read the story in full and why i abandoned a round the world trip you will firsthave to overcome a bout of soliloquoy:

I was thinking recently of the all those faces I have discovered and lost on the way due to time and distance. I have been lucky enough to experience much love and acceptance along this path we call life and though I try to keep in touch with so many of those people sometimes with the marvellous tool of email, we still lose touch and the tide moves in to wash away those memories slowly. Then one day, something, a song with a nostalgic edge, a photo from my travelling past or simply a resemblance of that character makes the memories come flooding back and a tear comes to my eye. The contribution could have been small but well-timed or extended and prevailing but the effect is equally satisfying as I peer into that past full of tiny shining memories that beam their light out through the darkness.

Many of these people will have been fully aware of their contribution and probably decided to feed something into my life as a matter of course because their personalities naturally ooze this love and service, either through a positive nature or nurture. To these people I owe the greatest debt. They have put up with my idiosyncrasies to respect and value me, giving so much more than I can repay. I am who I am because of you people.

Then there are those who have seen something in me or my circumstance that has prompted them to act in my favour and though many of those will never read this I also owe them so much – their unexpected outreached hand has also lightened my burden.

I suppose I could carry on from here but I won't. Maybe more next time if I feel similarly inspired to bore you senseless. I know some of you may enjoy my sentimentalist nostalgic meanderings, but it is not everyone's cup of tea.

As you may have imagined, I didn't get to go round the world. To cut a long story short a cancer was found and extracted from my mother's fallopian tube. She is now taking a four month chemotherapy course to try to terminate any possible re-occurrence and hopefully things should be fine from now on.

On deciding to stay here I reverted to Plan B – a hike through central and eastern Europe. But before that I took advantage of some very financially healthy English teaching positions that were on offer around the UK. Accepting a post at a centre offering around £300 a week in Leicester I arrived at a place that was always going to be hard after the freedom of Barcelona.

However, what could have broken me also had the potential to make me stronger and though the going was tough at times some of those sources of light have again touched my life and let my expression run free to the tune of the young students' cheery smiles or warm embraces of new acquaintances.

So yeah, you guessed it!! Been teaching mainly Italian kids plus a number of Turks who left me totally breathless with the chaos they could drum up in their rooms. Maybe I am far too leisurely and conducive to identification and creativity rather than discipline but these 12-year-olds made my life hell for two weeks and at the end I would just give up with them through sheer exhaustion. The Italians were much better, being 16-17, and having some interesting conversations with some of them was definitely one of the highlights of my trip here as it gave me a brand new point of view of the country of my descent and inspired to try to visit it this summer.

I also connected with some of the Leicester locals too, some of which I found surprisingly open and friendly, with some random spontaneous meetings having resounding success.

Leicester is a very multi-cultural city with 400,000 people where ethnic friction is practically unheard of and asian numbers rise to nearly half of the population. Cultural tolerance and a strong alternative scene made this place a very acceptable place to spend a month and I feel all the richer for having been there.

After that I hitchhiked to Manchester and then travelled down to Devon for a music festival and to see some old friends with my brother. Like the last time it was a fantastic time with lots of surf and healthy communication with old and new friends.

After that I hitched to London in a record time of 4 hours and got a 15 quid coach down to Amsterdam. On writing this i am in antwerp visiting some cool hitchhikers i picked up in spain a year ago. they have been cool to me and shown me around a bit. I was also in Amsterdam with its pretty canals and hordes of tourists, its coffeeshops with marijuana smoke streaming out and its somewhat disturbing red light district with its prostitutes selling themselves on shop windows. I visited a cute little town called katwijk and also eindhoven and today i will be in brussels..
catch some cool pics on my pics website where ued you can also read my new blog i havent updated much recently:
www.picasaweb.google.com/john.culatto

the next step: settling into the rhythm of hitching...

Wow – I love the travelling life… I mean, apart from these keyboards from foreign lands that make it impossible to found the exclamation mark, everything is good….

I am so happy to have found hitchhiking as a travel medium. It has given me such an incredible medium to explore central Europe on my own and meeting different people from the countries you are travelling thru or fellow travellers in a similar place as myself. It also gives you an amazing opportunity to walk into someone's life in that same place and my knowledge of languages has helped me in this respect, allowing me to get underneath the skin of these individuals, especially as most of these people tend to be pre-disposed to either share or listen. It is maybe more than I ever imagined but then I never really needed it before as my love of surfing and independent travel necessitates a need for your own transport.

So, as I told you last time my life took some cool twists and turns since I arrived in mainland Europe . When in Amsterdam with its libertarian lifestyle I experienced a liberalisation I had not seen before but not surprisingly it is populated by an ever-increasing reserved upper middle class feeding on its tourism value rather than a bohemian set of bohemian arty types.

Onto Katwijk with Kock, Jaap and the boys and we see the workings of a small typical Dutch town with an emphasis on work, responsibility and duty, standards of small town Western society. They treated me well and were good hosts for a few days relaxing there, making me feel at home and unload some stuff. Next stop I tried to hitch to Eindhoven from just before Rotterdam but a lack of rides meant I had to get into Rotterdam and catch a train instead.

I stayed with my Russian Couchsurfer friend and talked long and deep about some interesting topics. He also gave me a great backpack which would be key in the rest on my journey – wow, its great!! Then, I then hitched to Antwerp where I met up 2 hitchers I had met myself in South Spain and picked up. I stayed with them a night and made some more inroads into Belgian culture, finding Belgians very friendly and open-minded people speaking a French language but not as proud or boisterous as the French or a Flemish and not spitting out much Flem (lol!)

Soon, it was onto Brussels where a few nights with a girl I met on the internet (yeh I am sad I know, but it was when I was in Gib suffering total estrangement) was a strange experience in taking relationships into real life which seemed to work quite well on the whole. I washed some clothes and chartered my plans for the future in between some sobering chats that informed us how different people can be outside the projections we cast on the internet. Still, it was edifying and allowed me to move on, getting on the road to Geneva . I didn't expect to arrive anywhere near there in one day but it turned out that as I got to the departure point (appropriately called Delta station) I found a hippie looking girl approaching the same point. We joined forces and found how easy hitching can be with a girl, strangely softening my bearded face from that of a wandering Al Qaeda terrorist with a backpack of plastic explosive to a resigned boyfriend look. It was an interesting union and ride after ride I started enjoying this company on the road, taking away some of my anxiety and giving me more perseverance. Soon, around Luxembourg , we found some interesting Italian guys doing summer fruitpicking. They were keen to drive us down and eventually ended up taking us to the farm of my fellow hitcher deep in the French Alps. The French girl seemed to guide us endlessly through these hills always saying it was half an hour away and then finding out it was further and further and soon we found ourselves deep in our reserve tank, only reaching the farm by the skin of the teeth- made me laugh a lot!!! Waking from our tents in the morning we had homemade goats cheese for breakfast with the lovely alternative and humble Italian couple overlooking a beautiful green valley with Alps on every side- a wonderful experience!

Afterwards I said my goodbyes and hitched over the mountains and onto Geneva where I met up with my friend from Morocco, Stephane.

The last few days have been a bit chaotic with a heap of meeting with his friends and some slightly exuberant partying I do try to shy away from when I can. Stephane, who i had met in morocco was now trying to accomodate himself to real life using parties and social life to fill the vacuum of a travelling life... He was also super kind to me and made me feel so at home even cooking a fondue for me and giving me some great times. When i left i felt the pinch of loneliness as i parted towards the mountains to see friends of my dad at L Abri in the mountains which was a great experience...

Next stop was a hippy festival in Liguria, Italy where some couchsurfer had invited me. Hitching was impossible in Italy compared to Switzerland where even lone women picked me up, so i had to take the train.
Finding this place was a total mission as it was sited in the middle of nowhere literally. Some great Italian hospitality and empathy opened my eyes to the fact that italians were not just smarmy, greasy closed ppl as i was given a place to sleep in a tent and given a ride 5km down a 10km track which eventually led me to the rainbow gathering after a gruelling slog uphill thru dense forest with my packpack on my tired shoulders.

This gathering was a great experience with some simple, non-materialistic individuals living in community, sharing their affection and belongings and all in the midst of thick forest on the banks of a cold, dark stream where you could wash and bathe on the warmer days. Despite a disturbing esoteric edge it was a generally good experience as it put me in touch with like-minded ppl who i felt comfortable with and received some mystical hugs from some wonderful persons. I also made some good friendships which i hope i can be in touch with in the future.
I eventually took a ride with a cool italian called david who took me as far as modena where some ppl i met hitching drove me close to venice from where i got a train that got me to venice. then i walked all night aound the town of vemice which was quite trrrippyy as a big storm came in and i reached the sides of the island various times and tried to hide from the rain under bridges and beside canals.. hehe...and then i went to trieste and slovenia followed by some adventures in krk where i slept under trees and in shut-down hostels!!

Then i got a long ride from krk island to slovenia and some girl that picked me up took me to a friend´s place who was on couchsurfing. After a night partying in some random village i took a trip to graz on train after trying to hitch for 3 hours. I managed to avoid paying too much and ended up in austria where i was with the austrian friend for a week. It was cool to share stuff walking thru the countryside and now i am in graz town on some slow connection in an alternative centre on a linux DOS (if u no wot that means). Goin out and about this weekend a bit but may see lea again on monday b4 going to vienna, hungary, poland and germany where i hope to buy the van that will take me to north Spain. If you wanna hook up i would love to have some cool conversations and company somewhere drop us a line. my necxt moves are vienna, hungary, and germany where i will buy a van to take me down to north spain via france...

okay - here i will have to fill in between these two places where there seems to be a gap... i stayed with a really cool friend of a friend of a friend in central Vienna. It seemed like it was a posh lawyers building but then in the middle of it was this alternative community with massive rooms and a quirky guy with a snake around his neck a lot of the time! He would even go to the park and the snake would encircle his body under his clothes - i even tried it for myself and it gave me a great sense of companionship as the serpent's scales carressed by skin. Some other CSer i came up with was quite scared but on the whole it was interesting!! I also went out on teh town as it was a Saturday and then the next day tried to hitch and then eventually took a coach to Slovakia where I was supposed to couchsurf. Walking around the rather grim town of Bratislava looking for a cheap hostel I eventually found someone who looked more alternative and thene ended up being a CSer too who let me look use his phone to ring the guy i was going to stay with! I was a bit late for the party he still obligated me to consume large amounts of the borovitchka local brew which ended up getting me pretty plastered after which we went to what must be the worst nightclub in Europe called the Harley Davidoson Club, full of empty-faced people and definitely not my scene! We ate some more traditional food and I circulated with easily the fastest driver i have ever been with thru bratislava in one of those rides where you dont say wnything until the end and then you get off totally muted... hehehe
a cheap bus - only 3 euros - to Budapest made me quit hitching for a bit, and soon I arrived in one of the most beautiful cities in Europe on a par with Prague. I stayed in the countryside with an English teacher CSer and then after a night moved into the capital with lovely Gyorgy where I stayed two nights and also met Kazi's friend!

I left Budapest to hitchhike to Poland with the help of www.hitchbase.com which is a great resource for finding places to hitch from! I found the spot listed there with the help of another guy who was hitching from a 6 month trip in Asia and heading to Helsinki!! He was neater than me, though, and found a lift pretty quick. Alone again I started to get that sinking feeling again which increased when the rain started to fall incessantly around me! I was getting nowhere fast and things got worse when i found myself in the middle of a biggish town with no way out and still raining on me without waterproofs! Still only about 30km outside budapest i started to get desperate and after a funny conversation with some local kids decided to catch a local train to the border which was always a good idea as people normally dont like crossing borders with people on board.

As the local train whizzed by a number of small isolated hungarian villages with old grannies peering out of wooden shacks and local boys smoked cigarettes with their girlfriends in the latter recesses of the carriage, I started to ponder my experiences as I sat in wait for my arrival, the green leaves on the trees beginning to take a more yellowish appearance as autumn signalled the end of the summer season. It was a relief from the torrent of thoughts that flood your loneliness to finally arrive at my destination, where I walked along the small patchy road to find a bus to take me to the frontier itself. Three kids orientated me and a drunkard followed me up the steps seeming to motion to me that i didnt have to pay until the driver came back in search of his 200 forint which i handed over with a sidelook at the now distracted drunk old man, possibly a victim of a circumstance more than decision.

Arriving at the border I started to cross into Slovakia again and was greeted with a glorious site. The sun was now setting and lighting up with powerful hues of orange and red the whole sky, creating a scene to inspire me and lift me from the doom and gloom of my self-pity. For a second I paused, my heart lifted by the massive painting before me a present from above for my toils and the contemplation of the clouds moving in such varying shades of red and yellow above me like a huge fire where the clouds were the flames and the sky the fireplace.

I thought back to the many sunsets I had seen, so many over the beloved ocean and I could smile.

Almost instictively through the frontier control where the officers acknowledged my British passport with respect, I stuck out my thumb. The second car stopped and I got the next lift to my spirits. A well-dressed, white-collar computers guy welcomed me in and ended up chatting for a couple of hours as he took me to the centre of the Slovakian mountains where I learnt more about how things were, changed and are in the area. Next I was picked up by some dodgy looking guys in a dark van, just farm workers returning from a day at work but the lack of communication and their burly appearance left me a tad nervous. A call from the driver's sister comforted me and they left me at another petrol station just south of the polish border. There I stood at a traffic light in the middle of the night trying my luck with any drivers. The second vehicle in the right direction stopped, a white van with slovakian plates and some guy invited me in. Andrei turned out to be a real gentle father and husband and through the long drive to Warsaw we exchanged views and vocabulary session as he tried to improve a practically non-existent English. I even slept in the back of the van while he slept at the front, so much was our confidence.

Arriving sleepily in Warsaw I soon learnt that 85% of the city had been destroyed by the Nazis in the Great War as the Soviets looked on mercilessly from the other side of the river, while nearly everyone was killed in the occupation. Obviously, there was not much to see and I got stuck at some suburban area where I could not hitch from so I took the bus to Pulawy (pronounced pu-wa-ve) where a friend of my sis lived. It was rainy and gridlocked with traffic as i kept the back of the bus entertained with variations on the dont worry be happy song still ringing in my head from the night before.

The next few days I relaxed with Asia and her cool young friends in Pulawy, their local knowledge and alternative feel, allowing me to feel at home for the first time in a while, take some pretty pics, eat lots of good food and party a bit too, vodka being commonplace!

With warm memories in my heart and my friendship with the cool Polish girl Asia cemented I hitched successfully to Krakow, where I stayed a night in a cheap hostel and explored the lively nightlife, even meeting some Spaniards there on Erasmus and some friendly locals.

My love of Poland increased when a really cool, friendly and alternative Polish guy and then some punk rockers picked me up on a truck and took me to an old friend from my London days in Gliwice. It was good to see Kasia, who since then had got married to a Portuguese guy and had a baby. We talked a lot and I adopted the cheerful baby Samu for a few days as I walked him in the park and played on the swings with him. Some chilled days were spent there it being a good time to take stock of my aims and analyse some things a bit further with a generous and openminded person like Kasia.

A perfect lift to the front door of the place I was staying at by a fellow traveller working in the area was a good way to come in to Wroclaw, another cool city and my last stop in Poland. Couchsurfers Agnieska and her flatmates kept me company for one night before I moved to a really cool guy called Manic (not maniac, he reminded me!- i didnt tell him wot manic meant - hehe). This guy treated me like his potter girlfriend who was in France and fed me good vegan food, took me round the town, smiled at my jokes and even let me sleep beside him in his double bed. i felt like kissing him at the end but I didnt ;)

Another horrible journey awaited me to the Czech border having not learnt from my past experiences, but it was lit up by a busload of drunk Polish countryfolk on holiday to a farm in south Poland. They gave me more vodka and for a moment the seratonin raced through my brain giving me some joy and allowing me to sample the swishing autumn leaves flying around the bus as I headed towards the border, the sun streaming through gathering rainclouds illuminating passing hills and meadows.

Not getting many lifts after being left in the middle of nowhere I eventually got taken to a town by an old man and he showed me the bus to near the border. It seemed logical as light was going fast and my luck was running low. However, the bus left me 5km from the border and when I was on board, to make matters worse, the heavens opened and it was getting shitty standing without any polish money so close and yet so far from the czech republic. There were no buses for an hour so I started trekking in the driving rain, still with no waterproofs. Eventually, soaked through and aching all over I spotted a taxi and with my last remaining slotis got a lift as far as I could go, eventually stretching it to the frontier with 200 forint i had left from hungary- which the guy must have thought were worth a lot but was less than a euro - i suppose ok for a km... In the still pouring rain and total darkness I crossed the border on foot and after chatting with a friendly border guard stood in the rain with low spirits knowing there was no buses and trying to find a lift. Half-an-hour later, tired and wet, a brand new Audi A4 pulls over and says he can drop me in Prague. Driving through the motorways at 180km/h and practicing his English we arrive at the metro station renewed by this guys positive spirit and ready to meet up with another couchsurfer with a quirky profile. A girl met on the metro platform accompanies me and then takes me to the coolest alternative club in Prague, Cross and I dance all night to some great techno. A tour of the visually impressive town walking is enough to kill me off the next day and ensure that I am physically tired and frustrated as I set off hitching to Dresden. Eventually, after a few hours at a petrol station a friendly Hungarian trucker agrees to take me to Dresden and as I scramble up the bank of the motorway I take my first steps in Germany.

Now, maybe I have been a bit critical of some of the German characteristics like their rigidity but in the former East Germany I found myself very much at home with the alternative youth. Staying with the lovely Stefan I met in Portugal 5 years ago in Portugal, a friend of Lea's and a really intellectual couchsurfer girl and a girl who became like a sister to me, Inez, Dresden proved a great stop and it was 'super gut'. From there, I got picked up by some funky guys i met in Morocco from near Berlin. Robert and Henry proved company fit for a king and just 2 days with them gave me such a good vibe i feel a tear bursting out of my eye right now. I woodchopped, ate a curry worstken and walked the countryside while staying in Robert's self-constructed home in Pristweld, where he had also hosted an illegal pub in the past.

Reluctantly, I got a lift to Berlin but there was even more acceptance there among the alternative crew in Berlin, the Friedricshain neighbourhood with all its community houses, graffiti art, squats and hausprojekt former squats providing a great place to make free parties and meet some cool people. From Fischladen with its tasty cheap food to the Schnarub, with its punk crew, to the basement next to Fischladen where i stayed one night until the early hours I simply loved Berlin and returned soon after to buy a van from a friend of a friend of Lea.

And to finish off, this from an email i sent from this carpet shop in central Marberg drinking Iranian black tea:

It would have been good to take a lift to holland as i had some problems getting lost with the train and then arrived late to the hitchhiking point. But within 15 minutes i got a ride with a lebanese guy except it was a bit in the wrong direction and he left me just north of frankfurt in the middle of the night at a petrol station... i was cold and feeling lonely and lost for 2 hours asking people to take me north or west. But no-one was going there and I felt a bit desperate and tired from going partying with some friends in the punk club the night before! When I was getting really desperate some friendly couple said they would take me to a better petrol station.

Two days later and I am still with the same couple as they took me to their house in the countryside and then the girl´s house in a small town. Now i am in Marburg with this guy and maybe stay here a day or 2 more discovering a different place as this guy makes for good conversation because he is involved in some environmental issues like fighting atomic energy and genetically modified foods!

He also knows about hitchhiking because he has done 60,000km like that and will help me find a good place to go to Netherlands.

Seeing as I am sitting in Kati's living room in Rigaerstrasse in Friedricshain, Berlin besieged by scores of thought-provoking images I thought I would choose this moment to keep up my record of the events that have sailed by me in the last 10 days or so. The length of time being shorter I hope the story is too. My deepest regret (lol!) must go out to those with busy schedules on whose lap I surplanted a ridiculously long account of my travels which had no bearing on their lives but was just a complication of that very schedule. I hope that some were inspired and filled by my stories and through these words given something to dream on or enthuse about. Sorry also for the creative language and complicated vocabulary. I know the beauty is its simplicity but perhaps I need to paint an intricate picture just to maintain my interest. The long words may exclude some people from relishing my narrative but I think I have selfish interest in maintaining my own attention in what I am writing to the extent that I don't mind letting my mind may wander.

Still fighting with those thoughts of taking on a Medusa-headed monster in the old Populous II freeware game I downloaded a while back, I will continue to to tell of those experiences of the past few days.

My escape from the student party world of Marberg was not effected with the panache and effectiveness I expected! In fact, the weekend went by in such a blur of activity, meeting new people in different house parties around town thanks to the expert guidance of Gwen who I met on my first night, that by the time Monday came and I was back on the road to Amsterdam, the sinking feeling in my stomach was ever deeper.

On top of that, I was forced to wait by the side of the road for a lift that never came, chillier temperatures meaning that I had to take an occasional walk around the services area to get warmed up. Even though one really friendly doctor guy bought me lunch it was soon obvious that the route recommended to me by Olaf, my host in Marburg, was next to impossible.

After a few hours of nothingness and with sun closing its eyes, I changed direction and headed north, evading the opportunity of taking the A3 all the way to Holland to the more uncertain route along the A45 to the maze around Dortmund. However, things started looking up quickly as I got transported closer to my destination, with a trip to the services area before Duisberg giving me the lucky break I needed to get back on the A3. And, just as I contemplated an overnight stay in a rather cosy-looking bin room around midnight as the wind and rain howled around the cafe I was stranded in, I met a couple of travelling Dutchies from Utrecht who offered me a lift to their hometown as well as a few hours' sleep in their humble abode.

This miraculous lift led me to getting into Amsterdam the next day where I remained for 3 days with a friend from my last stay there. The strange marihuana culture still made me laugh to myself while we also met some funky alternative people.

Next stop was Ernst's place in Rotterdam, a cool 3-storey home where I relished the opportunities of some accompanied and unaccompanied freedom to explore this modern masterpiece of a city with a cool squat bang in the centre too. There I met a very interesting couple (2 husbands) as well as some travelling Canadians and Rotters ...(lol)

It was great to see Ernst again and find out he had even been imprisoned by rebels in Ivory Coast during his trip through Africa!

Jaap picked me up and treated me to some Dutch hospitality at his new home in Katwijk too, as I ate some tasty homemade food at his mother's place, went to a meeting of the SICK group, who incidentally are not sick at all, but quite lively; and eventually dropped me at a petrol station on Tuesday from where I tried to hitch to Germany with all the stuff I had picked up at Jaap's place. However, the plumetting temperatures and lack of lifts meant I got stuck in Amsterdam all day and all the different spots yielded no real success. It soon got dark and I decided to hit plan B. I knew there was a mitfahrenheit.com (?!) lift from Groningen to Berlin and even though it was 25 euros I was so loaded and exhausted and cold I decided to go for it. Trusting on a few couchsurfing requests I had sent out the day before, I put up signs for the nearest towns in that direction. Immigrants were my salvation, as I was picked up by an Iranian, some Turks, and some Saddam Hussein-loving Iraqi to dismissed the Americans as liars and tyrants as he drove me all the way to Groningen with his friend.

I couchsurfed that night at a friendly traveller girl's place and left the next morning for the station where I was picked up by the mitfahr... guy who took me to Berlin with two other cool girls. He was going on to Russia where he was staying with his Russian wife. I have been staying in Berlin with Kati who is heavily involved in the activist scene here in Germany and helped organise the massive G8 protests in Rostok attended by 10,000 ppl!!

Some cool squats and co-operative bars have been my haunts as I get back into the cool alternative scene here in Berlin until I can buy a van and head south.

I even went to a spontaneous squat demo with black block people and other guys yesterday thurs. 15 nov, though the only black stuff I could find were black tracksuit bottoms and navy blue sweater. We marched against a police attempt to break down a door to one of the squats and it was great that so many people turned up – around 120 – on such short notice – four hours – with the riot police only arriving at the end. That's when we all split in different directions and had some exciting times as police vans encircled the area. Soon the Fischladen was packed out while the Schnarub had heaps of cakes at the bar. Another fun and chilled night of kicker (futbolin) and pool ensued in all the spots around Friedrichshain as the word got around about our hard-hitting action. Now it's Friday and there is around 20 different events organised according to our trusty alternative guide Stress Factor!

Lets see if I can send this email as I haven't been able to get internet at our flat this time around! Oh! And it just snowed for a bit – first snowfall of the winter. Yayyy!!

And then recently I was at a party and met some cool people before walking through the falling snow at 5am with a good friend. What a beautiful experience especially as we were throwing snowballs at people and having a really cool time. I am enjoying Berlin a lot and everyday meet people I connect with, have a story to tell or I can learn from. But the biting cold weather is getting to me a bit and I think Gib for Xmas with my bro and cuzin should be fun, with morocco beckoning after that!!

I left you from my berlin fortresses doing what i did best - hang out at all the hausprojekt bars and enjoy the company of a number of really interesting people who would keep me company over one euro Steinburgs and beer stained pool tables where the balls would rocket out of the sides two second after you potted them.

I even was invited to stay at the famous sharni itself - home of the schnarub-thumby - a small punk bar that had its own concert hall in the cellar for a whole week, and from there visited the home of many activists at the kopi, and the new york in kreuzberg which i loved!
During that time i was frustrated by the incompetency of my bank which time and again failed to get the money sent to my friends bank account! It was only when after 4 weeks and a number of cock-ups that they said they would send the money for free to a friends bank account by fax.

So i took my new van, that old 83' LT28 and drove with my trusty friend Robert south, first to see Ines in Dresden and then after a few days to go further southwest to Freiburg, where i stayed with a guy i met a few years ago on a portugal surf trip where hje was residing in a haippie house. It was a chilled time in their countryside home and had some nice evening in their sauna and by the fire sipping at cocktails! I also got ot frieburg taking 3 people to stuttgart on www.mitfahrgelegenheit.com, easily the best way to travel when no hitching in germany and the rest of europe and also good for getting other to pay your petrol costs ( i only paid 30 euros for a 7 hour trip).

leaving the house was hard, especially thinking of the 1000km trip that faced me to Biarritz all alone. No-one wanted lifts and no-one was hitching so one fine but chilly morning i started off on the road by myself. of course, i took a wrong turning in the first 15 minutes and that sidetracked me for 1 hour but soon i was in france and already felt the more chilled latin atmosphere hit me. Things were going ok until i went to a supermarket for a late night shop. when i clambered back into my van with some tasty lidl french food my ignition wouldnt turn. i tried everything and eventually found some cables were disconnected but that reconnectiong them wasnt helping. it was starting to freeze now as we were near the alps in a cold wave so i went for a walk armed with 5 layers of clothing and my trusty coat. soon i started feeling warmth in my body again and eventually passed a local garage in this cute village. i was trying to party the night away but the party was too far away and eventually ended up in a restaurant where a celtic band was playing before hitting the sack in my fridge of a van! i only slept a bit and in the end was forced to do pressups in the middle of the night to create some warmth!!!

At daybreak i rang up the guy and even tho it was sunday he came and started up the car by pulling it and rewired it so i could start it up again for only 50 euros coz he was a nice iranian immigrant. thats when i got on with driving to biarritz along all the N roads so I wouldnt have to pay tolls as i was only going at 80-90!! It took a while, and after another night in the freezing cold, i managed to once again scent the sweet smell of pines and the ocean in les landes. I arrived 2 days and a half after setting off and hung out with Tom and Dorte and the aussies i know in the Biarritz area. they were cool and even scored a surf in glassy 2ft Biarritz bay tho i freeze my bum off coz my wetsuit was held together with a bit of string substituting the broken zip

less than a day after arriving i picked my bro Paul and cuz Ian in san sebastian. with them we drove a treachorous and snowy mountain path with snow on the sides and ice on the road itself in what ended up being a tricky night driving mission. we slept by a small village and then got up in the morniong to drive to barcelona! we arrived and visited can masdeu and then went to see my two friends there, Eli and Roser, who now live together!

After two days there where we also visited a massive club with thousands of people called Razz, we set off down the coast and after many hours of driving and irritating truck drivers for going so slow we arrived in Malaga where we picked up my bro Andy and my sis Ana from the airport to arrive in Gibraltar a few hours short of the Christmas Eve dinner. We did get a surf in too before we saw our parents and have surfed three more times since then.

New Years was spent watching a stunning sunrise from the Tarifa sand-dunes tho i have picked up a flu and i am now trying to get better as it stops me doing stuff and i dont like the coughing! Now i need to insure my van and get it going soon so i can head to morocco or somewhere else!
hope you are all well ... i will post more pics soon on my picasa website and put these posts on the blog ..
happy new year and hope we meet again!