Scouting Trip 2018

In the summer of 2018, after one year of common dreaming, numerous Naanu meetings and way too many Google Drive folders, the moment had come to step out in the world and to hit the road (Jack!).

Our "Scouting Trip” had two main objectives:

To find inspiration by visiting ecovillages, intentional communities, rural cultural projects or any other groups of people who had similar dreams as us.
To visit the countries identified by the Geographical Location Committee, in order to get a first feeling of the land and its inhabitants, and start to survey the conditions of finding a land, a house, or any other space that could host our project.

The main protagonists of this slightly crazy adventure were:

Eugene (a 15 years old wanna-be jeep, strong but a bit stubborn);
La Comtesse (a 24 years old aristocrat caravan, refined and a bit haughty);
The nomads (Eka, Thomas, Farah, Nico F., Quan, Bronte, Teyama, Shezray, Laura, Antonin, Anna, Guille);
Many other friends, old and new ones, that we encountered along the way;

The trip started from Brussels and ended in Brussels. In between, we drove more than 14 000km through 8 countries. Eka and I were present from beginning to end, and others joined along the way, some for a few days, some for a few weeks. This adventure brought us countless discoveries, encounters, laughs, cries, moments of frustration and moments of blissful dreaming. Here are some of the key chapters.

Chez Charbel de Montbel

After one week in Catalunya, the real scouting trip began in the hills and wilderness of the Ariège region, in France. Charbel, a friend of ours from Lebanon, owns a beautiful piece of land there, overlooking the Montbel lake and the Pyrénées mountains in the distance. He purchased this land a few years ago with his partner, with the intention of building his own house, producing his home made delicacies and attracting like-minded artists and friends. At the moment of our visit, the house was not built yet, but there was already a yurt, a tree-house, a mobile home, a big truck and a fabulous outdoor kitchen. Well enough space to kindly host the large delegation of 11 nomads that we were. Charbel and his 6 years-old son welcomed us warmly and we spent a grandiose five days there, cooking and eating, meeting local people, swimming in the lake and attending several events in the surrounding villages.

Personally, I immediately had a feeling of hard-to-grasp enchantment for the region. The people we met composed an interesting mix of farmers, older hippies and neo-rurals from different countries. Even though our stay was quite short, we could see that the region was booming with alternative projects and other dreamers just like us. Not to mention the vast unspoiled territories, which I thought were almost non-existent in France. We definitely had to come back to Ariège to explore deeper…

Torri Superiore: A 30 years-old ecovillage

After France, many people had to leave us and we remained a small core group: Teyama, Bronte, Eka and I started to head east. Just after crossing the French-Italian border, we paid a short visit to a well established ecovillage called Torri Superiore. And it literally blew our minds!

The community was founded in 1989 by a group of friends who decided to restore an abandoned medieval village. Almost 30 years later, the space is visually very impressive. The entire village is formed of one massive stone structure containing 162 rooms, an Escheresque labyrinth with narrow walkways, staircases and terraces, overlooking the valley. Around 20 members live there full-time, each having their own apartment, but sharing meals and communal life.

According to their own words, "the association is based on principles of sustainability and co-operation, with no dogmatic religious or political stand”. What I found particularly interesting for us as a very young collective, is that all their main decisions are taken with majority rule by the General Assembly, which meets twice a year, but that the daily decision-making of the residents, who meet every week, uses consensus. It’s an interesting hybrid model that obviously seems to function quite well. You have to see the beauty of what the residents of Torri Superiore have achieved to understand it.

Case a 1 Euro

The journey continued eastwards and southwards… towards Tuscany. Bellissima Toscana! After orgies of seafood in Mediterranean parking lots, after getting la Comtesse stuck into a supermarket tunnel, and after walking for hours up and down an entire valley populated by anarchist elfs (that will be for another blog post), our dear comrade Bronte had to leave the boat for other adventures. The three of us remaining then had the plan to scout for the famous “One euro houses”.
Some previous research led us to learn that many villages all across Italy were selling houses - but also abandoned castles, lighthouses and train stations - for the humble

sum of one euro. We quickly discovered that this was not a centralized governmental project in Italy, but rather a myriad of locally managed plans initiated by the municipalities. Therefore, in every Italian region or village, the conditions for taking over abandoned properties are different.

The particular village we visited, about an hour North of Lucca, had adopted such an initiative. Thanks to our Roman queen Isabella who conducted a few precious phone calls for us, we had the chance to spend the entire day with a representative of the municipality who showed us a few of these houses. One of them was a former school situated in a tiny hamlet on top of a mountain, abandoned since WWII. Here I shouldn’t be talking about a house, but rather several stone buildings in a state of ruin. But oh lord these ruins had a mysterious and magical aura floating around them! Of course the only thing to do would be to tear them down, maybe use the stones to rebuild something else and of course respect the local architectural heritage and traditions.

But here the great discovery was that, unlike what we previously thought, in this particular municipality, there was no obligation to invest a large amount of money in the first two years in order to fit the requirements. Basically, with around 2000 to 5000 € (the cost of legalization and lawyer fees), this place would be ours.

Not having the exact amount in our pockets at that precise moment, and thinking this needed further investigation and group discussions, we moved on. But the image lingered in our minds for a long while…

Asturias, land of resistance

Here the scouting trip per se took a little break. Antonin embarked on the vessel in Bologna and we drove a few hundred kilometers more to the east, to reach the magical Taka Tuka island in Hungary, where friends of ours are organizing a very special festival. We recharged our spiritual and emotional batteries and then spent a few days of sweet nostalgia in our beloved Budapest, where Teyama left us to go back to Canada. From there, we started driving back West: a long straight line with its share of mechanical problems and unexpected encounters.

Fast forward to the next chapter of our trip: the magnificent region of Asturias, in Northern Spain. This is where we reached our dear friends Anna and Guille, who joined us on the trip for a little while. Guille has two friends, twin brothers from Madrid, who decided to have a drastic change of life a few years ago and settled in a small mountain village here. I was already familiar with the region since we had visited them two years prior, and since then I knew I had to come back.

Asturias is a mountainous region blessed with breathtaking views, isolated little communities and very fertile land, which also has access to the Atlantic Coast and it’s very special wild beaches. Historically, it has been a region marked by resistance. In October 1934, a major miners’ strike turned into a revolutionary uprising, which was crushed by the Spanish Navy and the Spanish Republican Army. This sense of revolutionary ideals can still be felt when talking to the local inhabitants.

The twin brothers, Jorge and Roberto, although not originally from Asturias, have been well adopted by their local neighbors. They bought a large piece of land lost in the mountains where they are currently renovating an old stone barn to make their house. Their days are spent growing a large variety of vegetables, making their own beer, apple juice, bread, etc. They also have a few dogs, donkeys and sheep. It was truly inspiring to once again share their lifestyle for a few days.

It was also the occasion to have a wonderful hike in the mountains, reloading us with good energies. Soon after, Antonin had to go away, and we continued our journey towards Portugal.

Light upon light

Portugal is where the DocNomads adventure starts, so it was very special to go back there after all these years. The country is literally booming with ecovillages, permaculture farms and alternative communities, so the real challenge was to choose which ones we wanted to visit.

We were first welcomed very warmly at Mount of Oaks, a small intentional eco community created in 2006 in the center of Portugal. They describe themselves as a place “to practice the ideals of living in community and from the land, interdependent with neighbours, and dedicated to the principles of permaculture.” Emma, one of the residents, gave us a wonderful tour of the place and it’s different activities. We were particularly impressed by the different kinds of natural building techniques they have used for the various constructions. Also, the community works very closely with the municipality and the local population and is very proud to have created a network of local organic producers, uniting 43 farmers of the area.

From this point, Anna and Guille continued their journey to Lisbon, while Eka and I had the great chance to attend the Open Days event of the O Bosque collective, in Alentejo. And this was an absolutely brilliant encounter, which convinced us once again that the dream and desire to think collectively and to (re)find nature is shared by much more people than we could imagine.

The collective unites people of different occupations: artists, curators, farmers - essentially a group of friends that share a common project. Once again, I think it’s better to let their own words speak to explain who they are: A “horizontal collective focusing on establishing networks of alternative ways of life on several different dimensions, including agriculture and arts”.

The weekend was filled with workshops, presentations, games, delicious meals and concerts. Also, I have to admit that one of the main assets of this place is the natural swimming pool, which was a blessing in the midst of the Portuguese August heat! I think we were truly inspired by the O Bosque collective because, out of everybody we met along our route, they are probably the ones who most resemble our own dream we have with Naanu. And they have put it into practice beautifully.

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14 000 kilometers later, our hearts and minds were filled with the discoveries, encounters and new ideas we gathered along the road. But to be honest, we were also incredibly exhausted. It may sound absurd, but we needed some vacation from Naanu. We needed some time to take that in, to reflect, or to simply drift.

We had the deep feeling that a cycle had ended, and another one was about to start. Just like the cycles of nature.