Cloud Cuckoo Land Festival 2013

My first foray into British festivals. And of course it rained. And I believed the weather forecasts that said 'sunny all week'. So wearing the same singular jersey for 4 days and slip slide navigation though mud without wellies was challenging, but be that as it may Cloud Cuckoo Land brought a collection of people together that resonated close to my own heart. Environmental activists, yurt makers, artists, singing faeries, smiling bubble makers, fracking opposers, shining faces, permaculture experts, recyclers, wild-haired children doing what they should be doing- playing outdoors, capitalist protesters and hoola hoopers. There were interesting talks about food waste (all food for staff was provided by the People's Kitchen who use diverted food from landfill - all delicious, all vegetarian), off the grid living (all the talks were powered by bicycle peddling), laughter and conventional yoga, rum imported on a sailboat (the greenest way to ship goods), eager participants making jewelry out of trash and being accosted by the glitter pixies. I volunteered with Upcycling, a non-profit that helps segregate all the rubbish accumulated during the festival. It was at times disheartening seeing what people throw away, and how carelessly they do it. Must be a first world thing. Came across men's ties still in their packaging, full sets of edible eggs in their cartons, tents, cans of unopened alcohol, clothes, cosmetics, fruit, shoes, toys, inflatable pool rings to name a few. So so much waste, most of it unsorted, and nowhere to put it but in the ground. Be that as it may, the spirit of this festival was worth the teeth chattering at night, and the mud-stained sneakers in the morning. Who needs mainstream festivals anyway?

A little bit of peace and quiet

London can be busy a busy place needless to say, so earlier in the year (April in fact! That's how behind I am on posting), I decided to go to Gloucester. The cathedral there is again another wonder, cathedrals never cease to impress me. This one in particular is where the first two Harry Potter movies were filmed (Wheee! Inner dork alert), the stained glass window there was at a stage the largest in Europe (its size makes up an entire tennis court) and apparently shows one of the earliest recordings of golf being played.

From there I had the lucky chance to go on a 10-day silent vipassana meditation retreat, learning the ancient technique of meditation taught in India more than 2500 years ago as a "universal remedy for universal ills". Wandering the grounds in silence, noticing the spring flowers change and grow every morning in the woodlands on the retreat grounds did more than a sermon could have done methinks.

When the course was over and everyone dispersed back to reality, I held back to walk in the Hereford countryside. I stumbled upon a peculiar car graveyard that had succumbed to nature. Armed tanks, vintage trucks and cars no longer of use had been discarded in this strange section close to the retreat. It gave me satisfaction to see how they had surrendered to nature, becoming more beautiful in their acceptance of their fate. And with that acceptance of letting things be, I returned back to London with a little bit of Goenka's and nature's teachings.

10 000 views

Holy hell. I just noticed that my blog has had 10 000 views. Like woah. Thank you to all of you who check in once in a while (even if half of these hits are from my mum checking up on me) to see what I have been upto and where I have wandered to. This blog started over 2 years ago with an inkling, an itch, a dissatisfaction of where my predictable life was going. To travel is to live, and each step brings a new direction, a new perspective, a new humility at how much there is still left to learn, see and do.

As Jack Kerouac put it,“our battered suitcases were piled on the sidewalk again; we had longer ways to go. But no matter, the road is life”. Thank you for walking it with me.

And the rivers run through it

My oh my, how time does fly. Some many places have been seen and so little time to share them. A while back I was able to visit Scotland for a wee while, overlapping with a long overdue reunion with friends that I met while walking the Camino de Santiago a few years back. A weekend wash-out in true Scottish style, we attempted to climb Glencoe but the winds were too fierce up at the top, so we ended up doing a shorter walk through woodlands and inbetween soft winding rivers. A fellow mountaineer pointed out dwarf trees that grow in patchy mosaics in high altitudes. These mini birches find it hard to grow against the wind and cold of these bleak windswept mountains, and I found the idea of stunted trees in such a wet climate somewhat fascinating.

I was lucky enough to spot Loch Ness, stare at snow-spattered mountain tops and moss over every surface. Old abandoned castles draped in ivy, and quiet plains with not a soul walking on them. I came across a soft-spoken man, with even softer-spoken eyes who told me about the living architecture he had just built out of willow. It turns out he was a MacDougall son, whose estate I was wandering on. He was worried the willow would rot from all the rain they had been given, and can be found just behind Dunollie Castle, on land his family clan has owned for over a thousand years. It overlooks Oban, a sleepy seaside town, where days were quiet and nights even quieter. A brisk walk west of the town, you can catch a ferry across to Kerrera, an island also owned by the Macdougalls, and walk to see Gylen castle. Stop off at Kerrera Tea Garden just by the castle for some soup to warm up if you ever walk there, you will most likely need to dry off at some point. 

You walk alone, past grazing pastures and wonder what residents do on such a lonely island. It was lambing season, and all you could see were little white shadows following their mothers. A women who offered me a lift said that they were coming up to 9 months and would be taken from their mothers soon. I was relieved I would not be around to hear their mothers wail for them to come back to them. In Scotland's harsh yet beautiful vistas lay its sadness. Such a beautiful landscape changed irrevocably to feed man's hunger, coming across no native wildlife, only animals to eat.