Advancement

We had a lady from Scotland stay with us that had a caravan. Her name was Michelle. She helped us advance our place big time by picking up items we could use. We got a official front door for our living area and put it up using her drill. She also came with power tools. Michel is a sculpturist and made a fish out of wire and recycled beer cans. Also a donation of a gas camp stove with a butane tank was left by her. No more 1 to 2 hours of cooking on the fire. Fire cooking is nice n all but very time consuming. We now have a kitchen area made with a recycled door for our counter space and found wood that we made into shelves to store our food. Also a whole cabinet with shelves n such down below to store our cookware n dishes. Moving right uptown now. Even a mop and broom to wash all the floors n tile walls. Now it's feeling like home. We make community dinners and do community shopping. It costs us 5$ per person a week for food. Good deal to live in Paradise for 5$ a week. Can't beat that. Every day we collaborate with ideas and art. New paintings are being done all the time. New friends for life and some just passing through. We advance with the materials that we have and find. Taking some showers by setting a water bottle wrapped in black plastic outside to get hot in the sun. Then poked holes in the lid. One person squeezes it over the other one who's standing in the pool in their bathing suit. No wind in the pool, just hot sunshine and warm water. I still take the 2 euro hot shower in between times. I can live like this as long as I'm clean and my clothes are freshly laundered. Makes me feel civil at least. Each room in the house is turning into a art piece. Fun to see what's next.

Squating

I'm sitting here on the Mediterranean coast in Auguilas, Spain in a rock cave down below the estate that we're now squatting. The estate has 6 bedrooms, one indoor living room, outdoor terrace with open roof and a mosaic fireplace, and a indoor kitchen spot. Another spot to open a bike repair place and plenty of spaces for art galleries. The terrace has 12 or more garden beds with palm trees, a big pool, outdoor living space, garage, and many benches to sit on all around. We heard the place used to be a private party disco club. It's been abandon for 10 years. Here in Spain it's okay to squat a place out. No one minds especially if you are cleaning up the grounds. We picked up so much trash on the outside grounds all the way by the beach that we sit above. That was such an eye sore. Tourists and locals walk and jog a trail along the beach that goes right along the estates grounds every day. We cleaned out all the garbage, rubble, and glass from the inside of the place separating it into different piles. Next we swept and mopped the floors which have no damage to them so their beautiful tiles turned out. As we've been here cleaning this place up, other bicycle tourists have have stopped in to check the place out. We now have a German guy here, a couple from Australia and Ireland, Spanish guy, and a guy from Slovenia, and a Scottish lady all staying here. The weather here is perfect. It gets to the high 70's during the day. The sunrise is spectacular over the ocean and the sunsets over the mountains and palm trees in the distance. North and south of here is much colder. There's a under ground storage tank in the house that's collected rainwater as fresh as can be so we use that water to do our laundry. I fill up big water jugs with the top cut off.  Fill one with laundry soap n water and one just water to rinse the clothes. Ring them out and hang on a clothes line out on the terraces grounds. They dry quickly with the sun and ocean breeze. We do however take a 2 euro hot shower at a RV resort less than .5 kilometers away. Seth has a BMX bike course next door to the grounds beside the beach. It has jumps with ramps of dirt which he loves to go on. Seth has a wetsuit, goggles, and a boogie board so he goes out to a little beach right by the place and jumps into the ocean. We make community meals in the fireplace and do the dishes with fresh water from town. We're all doing art around the place. I'm making ceramic air dry pots for succulents and cactus and painting the outside of them, felt flower pins, and felt phone cases. Seth is making beads with recycled glass using his kitchen torch to melt them together and attach wire to it to hang from a necklace and making wire wrap shell and rock necklaces. Joe and others are painting and one is doing wire sculptures with recycled cans. We also have a spot where people can leave a donation for tools n such to help us build up the estate. People passing by have all been happy to see the changes. Donations have been left and it's been a positive vibe. For now we're settling here for the winter and will continue our bicycle tour in the Spring. I will try and keep updating with changes we make to the Isla Bonita, we named the place.