# Travelling without a penny



## Whereamiwhatdoido (Mar 15, 2016)

In January I posted my story about getting to Sahara, this trip culminated in a ride from Somewhere in North Germany up to the little northern country of Denmark. The host of the lucky trip was a Spaniard who married a dane in their youth, he was going to spend a month in Denmark with his family and offered me a ride when he was going back to Spain.

That's where this journey started. On January tenth we met up at the highway and started the 3400 km journey southbound.

Me as a avid traveller had brought nothing but a pack of rolling tobacco and the leftovers from my relatives christmas chocolate, which was a good kilogram worth of nice treats.

As it was, Miguel my host was not a rich man, infact his only income was the bit of marihuana he grew in his permaculture backgarden, selling the little he could spare. Although his family had built him the house he had drawn himself his sister being an architect and his father an entrepeneur. So atleast he was settled.

It was a journey for me to attain a certain personal growth that people doesn't often get to experience.

After living in a closed community called The Twelve Tribes, where there's a strong form of authority and many rules to follow, I was kicked out after more than two years of devotion to their doctrine. This had left me with a set of rules that were imprinted in my mind without the desire to follow them.

When joining the community I had become a new man, received a new name and forgotten who I was before.

After leaving the community I was trying to be that new man, but the habits of the one I had been before started coming back in turns to wrist my conscience and bow down to the doctrine. Incapable of being independant I had an internal battle of trying to subdue the doctrines, but without desires of my own it was a great source of confusion.

At Miguels house in Extremadura, Spain, one night I was attempting to make a fire in the furnace of my little hut. Completely overtaken by my lack of confidence I couldn't succeed in my attempt to create a fire. Miguel looked at me with compassion and told me I didn't believe in myself. Agreeingly I nodded and said, will I ever?

When a man is faced with such identity difficulties, what should he do?

My circumstances pushed me through it though.

There's a common fact that hitchhiking in Spain is difficult, and I think it's true. From Extremedura there's a good 600km to La Coruña in the north. There I had a friend from my travellings in France four years prior and I wanted to hitchhike to hear place.

The first day did get me about 420km northbound and just not knowing what else to do, the next morning I broke off from the highway, found a stick from the bushes by the road and started hiking north through the beautiful woods of the most rainy place in Spain called Galitia.

Walking in Spain is great, there's a very used trail from the old sheep herds that goes from north to south and east to west, crisscroasimg this large country. People are used to hikers and friendly as such.

My hike went 200km north and took me about 8 days short, with a stop in the historic city of Santiago de compostella.

Arriving at my friends house I was still quite struggling with my desires and the rules of the community. Resting out at my friends flat she didn't know what to do with my brokenhearted spirit and out of a longer conversation she offered me a ticket to fly to the Canarian islands. I accepted the offer.

Now don't forget I had no money when I started, surviving with hand to mouth I had asked strangers for food and shelter.

The day before my flight I went through a dumpster with a bag of clothes. Almost knowing what to find I went through every pocket of the pants in the back enevitably finding a 20€ note stuck in the backpocket of this fools pants. 

As I arrived on Tenerife I had still 10 euros of the 20 bill I found, which I spent on a bus to the southern part of the island. Getting to the bus station I headed up the first backpacker I saw and asked for some change, instead he told me to walk a few kilometers to the beach called La Caleta. There I could camp and eat he told me.

So I arrived there in this haven right after walking through babylon thinking my last option was to suicide. 

Faced with the questions and doubts of who I was as a person I spent one month there at the beach, slowly getting more confidence and learning who I was and who I wasn't I finally received that trust and knowledge that I am myself and not a failure in gods eyes. 

The personal endeavour to find myself ended up as an epic personal fight, very deep spiritual growth was aquured and now I'm slowly settling with life.

Last week a childhood friend had seen me begging on the streets and the next day I was offered a job by his mother. This saturday I am moving into a new flat with a pretty girl some years older than myself, with a wellpaid job and a growing awareness life is looking after me very well.

Sometimes the way up is down. Like a house you need to sometimes take down the old to build up the new.

Last week I ate food from a trashcan at an rv park, not the good kind. And now I have a job and an apartment. Lets see if normal life is everything I envied on those lonely nights.


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