011. Off-grid(ish) in Matarraña
Greetings earthlings.
After a heady three-week stint back in the city we increasingly begrudgingly call home, we got back on the road and found ourselves on a 6-hectare plot of land just outside the village of Cretas, in the Aragon region of Spain.
We’re here being hosted by Simone and Julie, on a “Workaway” trip - that is, free board and lodging in return for an amount of HARD GRAFT on their off-grid project. For those who haven’t had the pleasure of our personal TED talks on the subject, we’ve both been increasingly curious about a return to the semi-wild - and a month-long apprenticeship on someone else’s bit of wild seemed like a good way to try dipping our toes in.
This week we have….. dug foundations for new 14ft diameter water tanks, sorted olive branches into their respective branch categories (good for logs, good for fencing, good for nothing), walked their three rescue dogs on hikes navigating only by means of “turn left at the burnt tree, pass the big lumpy rock on your right”, watered fruit trees (more laborious than it sounds), chainsawed up firewood, and worked on building a deadwood fence. We’ve also spent a eye-wateringly frustrating amount of time trying to get aforementioned foundations level, in a spot where NOTHING is level, the ground is hard as concrete, the spirit level is too short, and the sun is blazing hot. Temporarily soul-destroying (the stress of having to make sure such an important thing is perfect with no training or expertise on the matter doesn’t help) but we will continue our efforts next week.
Outside of hard graft, we’ve been keeping up with our own work, briefly explored a neighbouring town for a supply run (hot sauce, soy sauce, cheese, chorizo, chocolate biscuits) to pep up our carbs and veg meal plan, stared at stars, had apperitivo with the ladies, picked their brains on everything off-grid, and yesterday were very kindly taken to a National Park for a hike and a crash course in rock-climbing (ropes and harnesses and all). Reader, I did it! It was scary, I looked down and immediately regretted everything, but it was great.
The weather is weird; boiling hot in the daytimes, and actually quite full-thermals-head-to-toe-plus-hot-water-bottle cold at night. Also, everything is dust.
Our lodgings are cute, albeit with no running water or mains electricity. We are housed in a stone built tiny house, with a gas bottle powered hob, and basic supplies. Our toilet is a dry toilet (a euphemism for a bucket and sawdust, I won’t go into more detail), our sink is outside and powered by a small bucket tank of water, and our shower is also outside, and is - there is a theme here emerging - also essentially a bucket. At first we ran our showers cold from the filtered rainwater harvest but, after realising that ice showers are hell on earth, have started supplementing these with a pan of boiled water. We have a huge battery pack to charge our bits and bobs (phones, laptops, internal lights) and a generous eSim data contract to power our connection to the outside world.
It is heaven.
