The travel journal of our nomadic journey in Portugal: doing work-exchange on farms, mostly with horses, living and learning first-hand, land based regenerative life-styles.
Inspired from Regenerative Farming, which is giving back to the land more than we take, Regenerative Living is giving more than we consume.
Join us on our adventure…
And may you be inspired to live your own riches of regeneration.
Having ended the previous engagement early, I found myself without a farm to go to for a second time. We’d decided that I’d go back to Romeira, but of course that wasn’t to start for several weeks. In the mean time, I’d been talking to my friends at Casével and right when I started looking, they were short on staff. Would they like me to come for a few weeks and help out? Yes, please!
And now we head an hour or so south to Coruche, a big farm with 3 stallions, 3 colts, 1 gelding and 6 mares (mostly Lusitanos). There was also 2 dogs kept on chains, a large quantity of pure bred cats (whom I rarely saw as they were largely kept inside the house), the owner and her quiet brother (neither of whom are in the photos), 1 other volunteer (who’s pictured) and I.
This was the most challenging work exchange experience I had. It was also a beautiful testament to the human spirit. The woman who runs this farm does it singlehandedly. Pause for a moment and take that in. It’s hard to imagine the amount of work that is for any single person to do. She does everything singlehandedly… not only all of the work with her 13 horses (breeding, feeding, cleaning, keeping the stallions separate from each other and the mares, etc., etc., etc.), also all of the other work in the house and on the farm including maintaining and repairing all of her vehicles (9 vans in various states of repair), her generator, the electricity and plumbing, and on and on.
It was incredible to witness.
Truly.
3 horses, 5 chickens, 5 cats, 1 dog, 2 people, a big house with a pool and a generous splash of gin.
Life is good.
Back in Portugal, I had been coordinating with 3 separate farms for stays for after Ethiopia. The first said no after months of maybe, the second failed spectacularly (she’d agree to dates, then change them, the last time angrily so we finally let it go). The third was eventually settled for a month after I returned to Portugal.
When went to pick up our van from the previous farm, who’d been kind enough to store him for us, I talked with my friends there. They were of course curious where I was going next. The woman who came to train the horses there twice a week, and had given me my first riding lesson in 30 years, invited me to come and help out for a few weeks at her new farm near Romeira.
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For our closing chapter in Ethiopia, our third and final week in this amazing country, we fly north to Lalibela, some 2,500m (8,000 ft) above sea level, home to sacred buildings, hewn of living rock.
Lalibela is in a war torn area and as luck would have it, we arrived 2 months after the end of a 3 year war. Electricity was back, which meant they could pump water up to the town from the river valley below, hotels and restaurants were opening and tourists returning.
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Bale Mountains National Park mainly sits on a high altitude plateau, which includes the second highest peak in Ethiopia, Tulu Dimtu at 4,377m (14,360 ft). The park is over 2,000 km2 (over 800 sq mi), and is home to a variety of endemic species, including the Abyssinian Wolf, or the Ethiopian Wolf, a small light-red wolf with white markings that resembles a large fox. As well as the many other animals who share their home, we hoped to be lucky enough to see one.
We have a thing for wolves. We both remember lives as wolves, and we know what wonderful, social creatures they are, a beautiful combination of wisdom, strength and love. When we learned we could visit the Abyssinian wolf, endemic to Ethiopoia, in a grand high altitude national park, we knew we wanted to go.
We wanted to go to Bale Mountains National Park, and discovered that we couldn’t rent a car to get there (more on that in the next blog), so we took a fairly stress filled bus ride to get to Awassa, a near by town in the Rift Valley Lake District. The bus ride itself was ok, getting to the bus terminal was challenging, even for our taxi driver, who had to call several people, including the bus driver, to figure it out, and we were late. Luckily, in this kind of culture, they’re ok to wait for you. Shew.
Then when we arrived, we no sooner got off the bus than one tuk tuk driver grabbed Benoit’s bag and walked off in one direction and another took mine and walked off in the opposite. What?!
We didn’t even have time to discuss what to do, I just took off after my guy and Benoit after his.
Honestly, I don’t even remember what I did. Bali and China can be a huge hassle like this, so usually I don’t even look at taxi drivers in this situation, I just hold my bag, ignore the questions, and plow through the throng. I know I don’t want a ride from anyone who does this, and there’re alway more chilled out drivers hanging out not far away. What I do remember is that I in about 30 seconds I had my bag and was walking back towards Benoit who was being much more polite than I had been. He saw me coming, got his and we walked away to regroup. Ok. Welcome to the Lake District. Luckily, the rest of our stay in Awassa (also spelled Hawassa and Awasa) was polite, friendly and very nice. We even made a friend here that we still keep in touch with. You’ll meet him later.
Hearing that we were going to Ethiopia, a childhood family friend of Benoit’s, who volunteers for a French charity, asked if we’d like to take clothes and school supplies to give away. Héléne’s charity, Association Solidarité-Partage, receives donations of clothing and household items to give to those in need, including sending them with travelers when they visit poorer countries. This felt like a great idea. It would help others and give us yet another way to get to know the Ethiopian people.
Ethiopia… The Cradle of Humanity.
The most heart connected place I’ve ever been in the world.
Incredibly poor, thanks to the continued modern raping of it’s resources by the Western World. Yay, humanity. This is one of those countries that suffers so that the rest of us can be comfortable, like many other places I’ve been such as Thailand, Laos, & Vietnam. This one was somehow a bit more heartbreaking…
So, why Ethiopia? It’s not the top of most people’s travel list, and it wasn’t even on mine.
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