Food for Thought

In café Bianco in Tarifa I sit down with a coffee. Under the constant castellano clatter over ‘café’s-con-leche’ I try to backtrack the previous few weeks. It feels like looking down a mountain. A slope of feelings full of switchbacks of thoughts and decisions.

While moving into Spain, greasing the groove seemed the only necessity. With each one of us finding rhythm and rhyme it felt like Bob’s our uncle. A documentary named ‘No Sweat’ crossed my mind.

A synopsis

“Ordinary family with two small children decide to minimize possessions, leave the safety and comfort of their home, and sleep mostly in a worn-out tent while walking through Europe and dipping their toes into North Africa.

After a hiccup-and-a-half, four strong-willed characters align and turn into a well-oiled machine for the remainder of an indefinite journey. No further challenges are encountered, as everything goes exactly as planned.”

LOL!

Our understanding of the reality of what we’re doing and what is happening will never be set in stone, because it’s ever-evolving.

Switchback

Leaving Portugal, we understood that following the ‘smaller’ roads along the Spanish coast all the way up to Barcelona would diminish our budget and we’d end up spending too much time in a country which didn’t have our preference for this journey. We decided to head for Italy by taking a boat from Tarifa.

To get from Huelva to Tarifa, Google maps and Google earth gave us two options. Both didn’t make sense and only later did we fully understand why. Whether we chose the route ‘by foot’ or ‘by bike’ in the apps, it either led us northeast, very closely past Seville (direction we didn’t want to go) or, what seemed, over the beach to a ferry. We chose the latter because of it going southeast. We’d figure out later what that ‘funny’ part to the crossing of the estuary encompassed.

The only thing between us and the dragging road that led to Matalascañas, was a fence to prevent wildlife from doing Russian roulette crossings. It wasn’t enough to block noise, so with the first commuters shooting past, our day started. The previous day we had walked a monotonous twenty-two kilometers, mostly gravel cycle path along this coastal vein, to what should have been a rather vibrant corner of the world: a colourful mix of traveling people-loving-life mingled with friendly locals, turning it into a travelers smörgåsm.

Slightly discombobulated, we found it to be ‘the next’ place full of inhospitable folks in soulless premises, spoiled by tourism: rude, overpriced, uninterested. (Such experiences could easily make you run away from the peninsula with a skunk aftertaste and the sounds of castanets leading the way, if it weren’t for the fact that I have a warm heart for the country.)

The funny

In Matalascañas we ran into a ‘dead end’, cornered between Doñana National Park and the mouth of the Guadalquiver river. From Matalascañas the Atlantic coast cycling route 1 merged with over thirty kilometers of beach, being the border of the park, before ending at an irregular ferry crossing. The effort of pulling and pushing our heavy load over the sand in a 6-hour tide window would be useless as camping on the beach could be rewarded with fines up to 3000 euros.

The next day we ended up in the most southern tip of Andalusia by taking a bus and thus speeding up the new plan. This didn’t sit well with me for quite a while, due to the facts that we said we’d be hiking ‘it’ and the name The Van Heldens Hike. (What would people think!) I had to lock up my ego once again, because a name doesn’t define our journey. It possibly only influences the main characteristics. We’ve got plenty of hiking ahead of us and only we choose the arena. Besides a website named ‘The-Van Heldens-Boat-Bus-And-Hike-And-May-Occasionally-Hang-Around-For-Longer-At-Certain-Places’ just doesn’t roll off the tongue very well.

If you read the synopsis, you wouldn’t be very interested in watching the documentary. People want something to identify with, and nobody identifies with a challenge-free life. It isn’t always a bed of roses, and that includes this journey. I’d love to take a few hardships out of the equation, but I can’t. They shall be there for a reason, probably to teach me things. It is important to continue to look at it like this, as you’d look at the rest of life. Overall satisfaction is the marker. Not all moments are fun and not all moments are bad, and to appreciate the highs you’ll have to embrace the challenges.

Our journey is explorative. Exploration is the driving force behind humankind. It’s equally much experimental. From the day that we are born, we learn through experiences. We are all on a journey to discover life and we’re innately searching for enrichment in some form. We are lured into the wrong riches, though.

Real exploration and enrichment cannot be done second-hand or through a screen. Personal outlook must be obtained first hand. We want to lead our children towards understanding how everything in the world fits together and how they fit within it. The only way to do that is to show them. Our society puts work above everything to gain the wrong riches. Perhaps it’s done from a good heart; to provide a great life for our children. But what if we don’t have to work so much to provide them a great life? What if they will make their own life and provide for themselves as adults. What if we just need to be available to them? Show them a life without all the grind? We like to inspire them to explore, build on relationships and understand that happiness comes from within and never from external things.

Our journey is about ‘figuring it out on-the-go’ too. We can’t always see the end point and all the steps we need to take, but even if we can only see a few steps ahead and we know the direction, we move. We choose non-mainstream and are not settling for uniformity, simply because we feel internal resistance against societies ‘normal’. This doesn’t mean that everything is bad, but it’s definitely not all good. Likewise, what we do isn’t all good, but it’s definitely not bad. It’s bringing both beautiful things and food for thought.

Easy days alternate hard ones. Parenting and learning continue to go hand in glove, and building relationships while being on this unconventional path is subject to resistance, for obvious reasons. There’s no hiding, no escape, no support. By choice! It’s not a complaint. We chose this challenge and do our best to make it work. The beauty of it is that you really get to know each other and yourself.

Laura and I, although (still) regularly bickering, grow closer, talk more and spend more quality time together. We’re creating a good picture of how things should be in the future. Max is challenged, but him and Sofia continue to grow closer together. He’s is the sweetest, kindest boy, but he needs to be in control. He benefits from structure, possibly more than we can offer him in the given circumstances; one of the disadvantages and challenges of this trip. Sofia thrives; she’s very funny, adaptable and becoming very independent. Every day is a learning day for everyone.

Similar to Max, I’ve got good days and challenging days, like it’s been for years now. Our trip nearly came to an end a while ago. Once again, I was unreasonably angry with everything and everyone, shouting empty stuff like getting to the nearest airport to fly fuckwhere. I ended up smashing up the parasol, Max’s bucket and my knuckles, while Laura and the kids had walked on. I’d promised myself to shoot videos in these moments, to take away some of the negative energy, but clearly that doesn’t happen in the heat of the moment.

In ‘Sitting In The Question’, an earlier blog, I shared some insights. Although I’ve been sitting in that question for a while now, I didn’t give it much concentrated thought anymore, until Laura put some words to it recently:

“Max wants to control everything. This, in combination with relentless energy and a brain that seems to be in overdrive, is challenging in itself. But what if you want that control too? What if there are colliding minor disorders in both of you?” It’s a good awareness to delve into.

Happiness in two nutshells

While keeping the trailer under control on a slope just outside of Santa Luzia, a couple on the side of the road makes a remark on my efforts. While turning in their direction, we exchange some words and I hear the typical Dunglish. I crack on in Dutch and soon Laura ‘joins’ the conversation, which turns into a lament about all the negative things that are happening to them. Laura is nodding understandably and throws in the off-topic question “Jullie wonen hier?” (You live here?). “Ja” (yes), says the woman and rambles on about how life sucks on all departments. After a 5-minute rant on operations, pain and discomfort, Laura, my great Dutch wife, asks the lady in Dutch: And? Do you like it? The woman, confused and hurt for being stepped on the soul answers: Nee! Natuurlijk niet. (No, of course not! Soon after we left, me with a suppressed smile and controlling the trailer like a hot knife through butter.

We visit a supermarket. It’s hilarious the think that they’ve become havens to us. We can linger around for hours, enjoying a thorough shop by Laura to stay more or less within our daily budget, for the kids to play with the balustrades and shopping trolley’s, charging phones, getting out of the blistering heat and for having a good poo. The only thing that supermarkets could consider (if they would want a 5-star rating) is customer showers. Can we have a Lidl shower, please?

As this blog reflects, and like we expected it to be, life is a cocktail of highs, challenges, funny moments and enlightening experiences. We continue to enjoy our endeavours and are looking forward to exploring Italy.

Thank you for following along!