Travel update - trying to catch up..

I thought writing my blog while I was traveling would be not too difficult.. I was wrong. I didn't have internet-acces (or only for short times) and I didn't have the time and focus for it either.

I am thinking if I should give you all a chronologic update, or just show the things I did and saw bit by bit.. It will be a long story, and the story is not even finished yet. So, let's give it a go..

A short recap of the journey so far;
* I said goodbye to my job and my house so I could be more free.
* Some days of CouchSurfing in Paris.
* I went to work at L'Eco Source Arboricole, a beautiful project to build heaven on earth in the beautiful area of Creuse, treehouses included. I painted the arrows to guide visitors trough the forest, they turned out to be small fairytale-paintings with squirrels, birds and trees.

And then…

With two new friends I went on my first hitchhiking trip to the south of France.



After one day with a lot of friendly, helpful people, we stranded in Toulouse where we were unable to find anything but very expensive hotels. This really was not an option for us. We asked for help at a small moroccan restaurant. By that time we were very tired and a little bit scared. Our luggage was way to heavy (the classic mistake of first-time-travelers, I guess) and the streets were getting dark and ominous. There were prostitutes at every corner and we felt most people on the streets had some business to do we didn't want to know more of. This was surely a very interesting part of the journey.. In the end we got to sleep in an empty apartment of one of the men from the restaurant.. For some good money of course.

The second day we ended up in Carcassonne, the third we finally reached our destination.. The Pilgrimsnest.. A beautiful place where travelers are welcome to stay and give a little of their time in exchange to help out in the nest, in the garden, doing some building and creating work, cleaning up, …



I had a good, but short time over here. On sunday we went to the market in Esperaza. (Which I can recommend you go see if you happen to travel trough that area! There are a lot of wonderful alternative people and projects to be found over there.. The market is like a party.) We had a great day. For me especially, because I got to go there with Franky on his motorbike. I had never been on a motorbike before, and to experience the ride trough that landscape in France was just amazing..