Emerika 2017 photos

For some more pics of this ongoing venture into the wild and
little understood American West, check out https://photos.app.goo.gl/kMBv9V47lWDWAzqP2

European Intermezzo.

Right. 

So many things that might have happened, did not. 

And not all dreams dreamed must become reality.

One late afternoon in sticky buzzing Caracas, I took a bus, from the delapitated eastern bus terminal out of town. A concrete colos of a structure stemming from the capitalist age of this country, now it's size almost mocking the many poor travelers waiting for their final destinations unknown.

After the usual late departing, the vigorous but seemingly useless bag search by an uninterested military police officer, the bus at last cranked it up and hit the highway towards Cuidad Bolivar. American movies screened the night and hid the uncoming darkness. Somehow I had become lax, too well trusting and careless, after the months in the relative safety of the Yoga forest. So it was, that in the dark, me snoozing on the molested bus seat, my handbag went wandering. For years traveling I had had my bag just right there where it was, slung over the seat in front of me. But I had forgotten, that this was Venezuela, that this country is in a practical state of civil war, and all go hungry on a daily basis.

So I lost my phone, passport, money, documents and most painfully, my notebook in which I have been colecting memories, poems and instructions for the last 5 years. It all got of the bus somwhere along that long dark stretch of starved road, and disapeared forever from my life. Those things that I valued most, the little things, have no value to them, where as the money, oh, that can be easily replaced. 

As the darkness lifted, we rolled into our port of destination, on the edge of the Amazone. However much I yearned to continue to that green place, that living mystery, that facinating jungle of life. It was all that I could do to make a direct U-turn, and with the last of my hidden money take the first next bus back to Caracas, back to that gruesome city.

Luckily, I had friends there, and Zeneida recieved me once more with open arms. Coming to the embassy for a new passport they imidiately asked me 'What are you doing here?' "Don't you know its dangerous". They where not surprised that I got robbed at all.
On the bus back from Cuidad Bolivar I went through many emotions. Had a serious conversation with myself about what I was doing, what the universe was trying to tell me, and about how to proceed.
Did I want to wait 2 weeks for a new passport in Caracas, with the chance that the country colapse into chaos in the mean time and I might not be able to leave at all?
Was my reason for going to the Amazone really justified.
What was I doing here?
Did this really give satisfaction, this random traveling?

That suddenly there was a voice in my head saying, "why don't you just go back to Europe for a while" Reset things, Have a good think about what you really want.

And so that's what I did.

Via Aruba and Curacao, the plane magic dropped me suddenly right back in the middle of the Dutch lowland madness once again, and I was home. 

Does it need saying that this was rather Bizar? Everything works, nobody is going hungry against their will, greenness everywhere. 

I had come back, even kind of against my own expectations, and many rejoiced over it. 

The European summer, Oh bliss, I was here for a while. But with the strong intention not to hang around. This was, a European holiday of sorts.

It didn't take long to regain most of the things I had lost in Venezuela. 

Only my diary, that would remail a sore scar on the face of my memmory for a long time. 

A good object of practice, of letting go those things most loved.

I felt like all those things written were now offered up to the gods, and it was up to me

to trust that the words of wisdom were always within me, and would surface in time of need.

I had a strong determination though to make back the money and value of the things I had lost.

So I quickly aquired a bunch of jobs here and there, while also tremendously enjoing hanging out with my friends and Mom against expectations, in this magical traveling intermezzo in my own home.

June came, and while on the bus I had made a whole list of things to do in Europe. 

One of them was to return to Wimereux with my Mom, to a camping where we had been in my late childhood on the pretty white coast of Calais.

So for 4 days we camped, walked along the beach and discovered wonderfull woods nearby. 

The changing weather added a lot of caracter to our stay there, to the point where, after a drenching beachwalk, we ended up driving around in our tiny car, while trying to dry our clothes on the blower, than hitting a central tavern for two cups of hot chocolate each!

June turned into July, and I returned to my old home on the Hobbitstee for a week to help them with the construction of their new passive house. The hobbitstee is Holland's oldest eco village and several years ago I lived ther for a few months serving as their veg Gardener. Now, aside from the building activities, I was involved in Wester Zwam. One of the small buissnisses onsite that produces oyster muschrooms from recycled coffee grinds they collect in their vicinity. 

Being a mushroom fanaticus myself, this was ofcourse facinating material. 

The hot July week sped by and that already almost concluded my time in Holland once again.

One of the things I had hoped to do coming back to the old world was to continue my journey south east, that I had started back in 2007, ever heading for the sancto sanctorum, the Aya Sofia, or the great Pyramids. A few years back I had left that path at the town of Wadern, in German Saarland, and that's where I would pick it back up. The hitchhiking journey there however was not without comedy, and it took me 2 days to cover the 500 km. there, passing almost exactly along the same route that I had hike all those years back, as if to remind me of what had gone before.

Of this walking, I always find it hard to say much of sense  Although the monents spent wandering the country side with only a map and my intuition as guides are by far the most memmorable of my life. Without a tent, I was forced to either sleep out in the open, or take for shelter in simple mountain huts, children's playcastles or a rocky cave. I did not complain. This is the life. This is true freedom. This is so beautiful  Bathing in a diferent river or pond each day. Meeting country folk, but mostly just walking in silence. Seeing the counrty change, as I trespassed from Germany into France and back, through these lands ravaged by almost every war that has scorched Europe for the last 500 years. These have become very weary people, building their fachwerk houses proud and strong, as anyone would be after surviving all that onslaught. Now all was quite though, and I passed through wood and vale undisturbed.

East and South it went. Over the mountains, through the great forest of Hagenau, to the wide Rhine river, calm and stready. There, across it's cool waters one can see the dark mass of the Swartzwald rising up from the lowlands. The next great chalange, the unknown, and for me, for now, the end of this journey on foot.

I spend the night in a grand castle. A playcastele that was, with many a slide and hanging bridge, from tower to tower. Achern bade me farewell in the morning with a nice refresching downpour as I once again waived my hitchhiking sighn for the grey stream of early commuters. I got a ride though, and than another, and soon I left the worst of the rain behind me and in but one day made it all the way to higher Austria where my friends Matze and Annelinde salvaged me from a cold wet night on a truck stop, just outside of Linz.

We stayed at His grand parents house, warm and cosy, washed everything, and felt like a blessed human being again to have such nice friends. We moved to his Parents amazing wooden mansion in the mountains, where we spent a few days gathering berries in the adjacent forrest of high pine and sunlit clearings, and prepared for the trip to come.

At last one early morn we drove off, the four of us, Matze, Annelinde, Matze's sister Marlena and me, tightly packed into a sweet old borrowed car, To Ozora.

Acros the Hungarian border we soon slipped, over the backroads, till we got to the big gate that announced in colourful letters : Welcome To Paradise.

Ozora is one of europe's biggest Psytrance festivals, and all of us but Marlena had been to these holy grounds before.

We magically set up camp, felt at home, and than hit the dance floor.

Eventhuogh the party was not officially to begin for another 2 days, the party vibe was already strong and music arose from many locations. 

For those who have never been to a Psytrance gathering it is hard to describe what it's really about. The mix of wonderful people, the many art installations, the long nights and burning days, the dirt and the beauty, the rush of the opening ceremony towards the dance floor and the thrill in the air is something that must simply be experienced. 

For the next 8 days the music never stopped. Always there was a crowd somewhere living it up, meeting people, being astonished, feeling amazing, going deeper. 

Possibly my favourite place at Ozora is the cooking grove. I never actually cooked anything there this year, but the ambiance is always so heartwarming there, full of cosy nooks and comfy corners. With many hammocks and magical surprises waiting to be discovered.

Music, dance however, was the main substance in use here, and I had plenty of it to go along with all the rest. The chill out dome, was enchanting, and it was here that after a whole week of little sleep and hot days I spent my last night here with Phillipine, under the high eaves ever moving and glistering and the waves of sound washing over and through my consciousness as we lay on the sandy floor, unwinding....

In other words, I had a great time. We had a great time. Our little tribe, but after all those transgressional experiences, it was time to go back home. My Austrian friends would soon leave to America, and I was headed back to Holland. 

Good to be in the city again, if only for a few days. That to me is the best way to there, a visitor, a Nomad.

In that magical warm cave at the wijttenbachstraat. In that home place, that is my safe haven, close to the one that bore me, and still ever showers me with her never-ending Love.

Party was not over though. And Yet another festival I was to attend. 

Closer to home this time. Up in the Northern Netherlands near Leeuwarden. Psy-fi kicked off barely 10 days after the final beats were sounded in the Ozorian valley.

The weather was very dutch, meaning grey and unpredictable. The land is gorgeous, with many islands and forest walkways and plenty of space to camp. where at Ozora you want to find a camping spot in the shade, here one looked to get a beam of sun on your tent, if at all possible. 

After the hive and madness I had just gone through, all of psy-fi felt a bit like one huge after party. It was beautiful too, and the vibe was good. The music was prime, with some of my favourites like Suduaya, CBL, Solar Fields and Ott playing in the chill out, where a fire burned right in the middle of the dance floor and one can have the stage behind you, standing with your feet in the water while making your moves. 

My friend Marloes came too, and we explored the quieter parts of the festival enjoying many a great cup of much needed hot chai to warm our chilly hands. Its just not the same, when you're standing at the main dance floor and the heavens open, water gushes down the ceiling and you have to wear a coat when dancing. Everything so well organised  but who can organise the weather (maybe the Chinese...)

Anyway. I was tired. Still recovering from my Post Ozorian attack of low Immunity  suffering all possible forms of low health in just one week. Could it be the Stardust? 

Now there was only one week left of this European Holiday. More than 3 months had passed since I left the Venezuelan crisis. And it was time to take flight once again. 

So carefully packing my few remaining possessions into crates, stowing them for I do not know how long, the room got very empty, and only those things that I was willing to carry on my own shoulders remained thoughtfully on the floor. 

What does one pack when one does not know when one will be back? What is wisdom? 

To miss, or to leave behind? To be freed from, or to crave. . . .

Luckily I had played this game many times before. And so I was really ready to go several days before the actual date. Which enabled me to spend more times with those loved ones, that I would not see again soon maybe. 

A final Cacao ceremony we had, and a final walk. In such moments it is often hard not to go into a finality mode. To see that all that has gone before is just as valuable as the last shared moment, and that they are often anyway the stuff they becomes memory.

As flights are cheaper from Paris, that is where I went. Spending a sweet two nights in the enormous castle of a house of my friend Phillipine's dad, spot in the middle of central paris, at a mere 10 minute's walk from the Notre Dame. A house so huge, that it took 70 steps from one end to the other, and with ceilings that would easily accommodate 3 men standing on each others shoulders. 

Amazingly thankful that had come back to my homelands. So unexpected, but just right. 

Yes, of course having been in south America would also have been right, would have been great. 

But, as one wise man once said when asked about the meaning of life; "Life is not inherently meaningful, but it may become so depending on what one does with it."

And what Have I done in these three months? 

I have connected with those close to me. I have regained things I had lost. 

I have gained clarity on how it is that I must move around, with purpose and a clear goal.

I have read some amazingly inspiring books, that I feel have set me back onto the track of self development, in a just and practical way.

I have come to accept that not everything goes the way that one thinks it should, but learned to trust that that is okay, and that precious jewels are found in many everyday moments

"There are no ordinary moments"

- From 'The way of the peaceful Warrior'

Phillipine was a contact form Ozora. And that turned everything into a perfect circle.

It's a big world, Its a small world. 

The world is round.