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.

Aguilas

We rode 37 kilometers through a mountain range. It was so hot out that we rode in shorts and tee shirts and gulped our water down. We also hit our  rode1000 kilometres on Seth's bike computer. That was a great victory for the Spidergoats. We cruzed going 60 kilometres down the mountain. Seth was worried he was going to get a speeding ticket. We rode into Augulas. After treating ourselves to a cervasa, cafe con leche, and a coke, we looked for a camp spot. We came across a abandoned house overlooking the sea up top on a small hill right outside the town. There are 2 guys living here, one German and one Spanish.The place has a huge terraced yard and we asked if it would be cool to pitch our tents. They said no problem so we set up camp. We were awoken by huge gusts of wind. We packed up and went into town and ended up at the house again. This time we cleaned up a room and put our tents inside. Perfect shelter from the wind. We've been here 5 days now and made friends with the guy's next door. One walked here and the other one bicycled. They said this is paradise to them. It sure is. A free house to live in on the beach, they work in town, have fresh collected rainwater to do laundry in, wake up to the sunrise and see the sunset. We definitely see so much potential for this property. We've been cleaning it out and picking up all the garbage around. Also while basking in the sun, playing guitar, Seth kicking his soccer ball, and making crafts. So nice to chill for awhile.

Cartagena

We loved Torrevieja so much that we decided to stay another day. We found the all time spot on the beach to sleep. Joe and Seth set up their hammocks between two palm trees and slept with a tarp over them to keep warm. I slept in the tent for it was far too cold for me. I'm not as brave as those two. We awoke to a drizzle of rain and overcast day so instead of basking in the sun, we rode on. Later we realized that it must have poured rain everywhere else since before we knew it our bikes were coated with mud. So much mud that our tires on our bikes wouldn't move anymore. We had to set up camp since the sun was setting fast. We found a spot right outside a military air force base in a semi dry field. We slept through the night with creepy noises all around us. Sketchy spot. The next day was a flat ride into Cartagena. Cartagena was full of fancy dressed people, tourists, and lots of expensive shops. We tried to find a hostel but realized there are none there. We ended up in a Arab neighborhood in a cheap hotel with no hot water. We stayed in Cartagena another day to check out a old Roman theater, Roman bull fighting ring, and their still uncovering old Roman ruins to this day. So neat to see. Fancy town on the ocean with lots of Roman history. This blog didn't send earlier but it's before La Azohia.

La Azohia

We headed out of Cartagena and into the mountains. We rode a hard 27 kilometers with the wind against us and a slow gradual hill with two major hills to top it off. The view around us and the fun downward incline made us feel like a motorcycle for a brief moment as we arrived in La Azohia. We got hooked up with a help ex that let us stay at her place for free. No help intended. We're so grateful for Laia to trust us and give our family the most serene place to cozy into. She has a beautiful house a block away from the beach to view the ocean. This is just what our family needed. We got to catch up on laundry, sew some items that needed to be fixed, bask in the sun, and watch some t.v. Just relax basically. We got to stay for 3 days and headed into the huge mountain range tomorrow. Mountains from here on out.

Torrevieja

We cycled onto Elche not too far out of Alicante. Stopped to enjoy the peace and quite of being out of the city life. Next we had a grueling hill along the freeway in which I walked up and Joe and Seth cycled up. Now I have no shame in walking. I did at first. I would brake down and cry that I couldn't make it. My packs on my bike out way my weight so it's hard on my knees. If I walk all us good. I take in the scenery around me and try not to think of the hill I'm going up. Everyone has a breaking point. Hills are mine. The thing is I made it in the end and then I feel a great accomplishment. We made it to Torrevieja and Seth had a flat tire from popping up so many curbs with so much weight on his bike. He's kid. Still likes going off curbs and trying to pop wheelies. The problem is we have 4 inner tubes with patches already in them. We fixed 2 of them and tried them out but in the end they were still no good. Very frustrating since the sun was going down and we had no idea where we were going to set up camp. We went on with Seth's semi flat tire and rode onto find a spot for the night. As we rode we realized how big Torrevieja is. We usually ride to the end of town and camp but there was no end to this town for it was already dark. These are worst case conditions because it's extremely hard to find a good spot in the dark. We were all tired and frustrated trying to find a spot. We were in the city housing with no open spaces. As we rode on into the night we finally found a camping spot in between two neighborhoods with a open field. We set up by a tree and called it a night. Woke up early so no one would know we were there. We went into town and got ham n cheese croissants and cafe con leches on the beach. Now we are relaxing on the beach and sunbathing while Seth is fishing for our dinner.

Alicante

We spent New Years in Alicante at a hostel. Alicante is a big city with a 2000 year old city on top of a hillside built into the rocks. It has a marina with really fancy yachts to old ships. There's rock n roll bars with live music and a punk scene here so we fit right in. Alicante also has cool record shops where we even saw Joe's record here for sale. Too cool. Most people speak English and there's such a nice relaxed feeling all around town. We saw live music outside the central market and a huge firework show during the day to celebrate New Years. Seth and I went ice skating in a homemade rink in a square. We had a blast for it's been too many years since we've done that. Later on at our hostel, a huge family party was going on in which they invited all of us to join in. We feasted on traditional dishes of food, desserts, live music with dancing, and great conversations. The best New Years yet.