Kundalini Yoga and Road Tripping in France

Following an all night bus ride to Barcelona, we received a warm welcome from Julia (our yoga friend who used to live in Edwardsville, IL). Since we accidentally left our camera at Sunseed, we don't have many pictures to share. We made the best of our one night stay by sightseeing and wandering the colorful busy streets. Thanks Julia!

An arduous overnight train ride left us at the gates of the European 3HO Yoga Festival in the Loire Valley of France. We arrived a day early to train as volunteers in the kitchen and registration desk. It was fun to pitch our tent in an open field, then watch it fill up with hundreds of tents as the days progressed.

Around 1800 people from all over Europe attended the yoga festival. Yogi Bhajan brought Kundalini Yoga (the Yoga of awareness) to the West in 1968. He founded 3HO (Healthy, Happy, Holy Organization) to help spread the teachings of Kundalini yoga. Kundalini yoga combines asanas (physical postures), meditation, mantra (chanting), pranayama (breath techniques) and music. Together these techniques help build and maintain a Healthy body, Happy mind, and Holy spirit. Read a great article about Kundalini Yoga on the 3HO website (What is it all about?).

According to Yogi Bhajan's teachings, sadhana (or daily spiritual practice) is the base, or foundation of all spiritual endeavors. Sadhana is whatever you do on a regular basis to clear your consciousness in order to relate to the infinite spirit within you. Every day we encounter new stress and every day we would benefit from some sort of spiritual practice. Include physical exercise, meditation, and prayer to cover all your bases and attune to your highest spirit.

In keeping with his teachings, each day of the 10 day yoga festival started with morning sadhana from 4:30 to 7am. The highlight of the festival was 3 days of White Tantric Yoga. White Tantric Yoga is done in pairs as a group meditation. It is designed to quickly break through mental and subconscious blocks. Practitioners sit facing their partner and do 6 to 8 kriyas lasting 31 or 62 minutes. A kriya is a meditation including a yoga posture (asana), a hand position (mudra), a breathing technique (pranayama), a mental focus, and/or a mantra. The kriyas were intense. Sometimes we meditated for 62 minutes holding our arms above our heads, or linked arms with our partner, chanted a mantra, stared into each other's eyes and did a breathing technique for 31 minutes. That is a long time to be doing something over and over but it makes for a very nice meditation. After a while you just let go and flow. At times we would lose focus and coordination, but often the mantra we were chanting allowed us to recenter and refocus. At times the chanting and breathing techniques took us beyond time as we felt we could continue the kriya forever if we had to.

This year, the White Tantric Yoga was milder than years past We practiced for about five hours a day, as opposed to years past where it was up to ten hours a day. One of our last krias was a 62 minute blind walk. We went in groups of 11 with hands held in a long chain chanting "wahe guru". It was quite a powerful three days of yoga.

When we weren't practicing, we were working with the awesome kitchen group pictured above. We were from about eight different countries, and by the end of the festival we had all become great friends.

We didn't cook meals at Sunseed because we weren't sure how to prepare food for 45 people. Well, we learned how to cook for 1800 during the festival. The above recipe made one day's worth of hot sauce for the festival. We both worked in the kitchen preparing dinner for several hours a day.

Josh was one of four strong men working in the kitchen, so he was called upon several times a day to pour food and tea from the pots to the serving buckets.

Our dish washing operation was massive. During meal preparation, 16 people each stirred a pot to make kicharee. If the pot was not stirred properly, it would stick to the bottom. This made the washing up quite challenging, some pots taking up to a half hour to clean. But we were working with friends, chanting and chatting so the work was never mundane.

The last day of the festival was called Peace Prayer Day, and a large feast was prepared. Za helped all day making the special meal of eggplant, potato and tomato. Twelve batches from the above cooker were eaten! Everyone was so excited to eat garlic bread and butter, it was a nice change of pace after eating kicharee and vegetable soup for a week.

On the last night, there was a huge dance party under the big top. The DJ played lots of Indian dance music and everyone celebrated a great week coming to a close.

Happy Yogis!

We knew we wanted to go to Amsterdam after the festival, but we weren't sure how we were going to get there. We solicited a ride from a supremely nice man from Hamburg, Germany. He said he wanted to take a few days to camp in France, then would drop us off in Amsterdam. We were excited to load into his Mercedes station wagon for a good old fashioned road trip. Volker was a great travel buddy, he liked to stop by the side of roads to make coffee on his camp stove and take back roads because they have better scenery.

We camped for free on the northern coast of France and had crepes before driving through Belgium.

The three days and nights were filled with great conversation, lots of laughter and general camaraderie. We were grateful to have met such an awesome person through yoga. Thanks Volker! We hope to visit you in Hamburg someday!

As our new friend drove away, we were back on our own with a new city to explore. We were looking forward to having some free time after our month of yoga and volunteering.

Sunseed Trust - sustainable living in Southern Spain

Following our trip to Morocco and back, we vowed never to travel through three continents in four days again. The day we left Chefchaouen, we took a taxi to the bus, then another taxi to the ferry, then two more buses. This route left us in Malaga Spain for the evening. Since the hostals close to the bus station were charging $75.00 a night, we headed down the beach to try out our new tent. Our free camping spot included a fantastic view of the Mediterranean and surrounding city.
The following morning, we went to Almeria by bus to begin volunteering and to take a solar hot water course at Sunseed Destert Technology.

Sunseed Trust began operating in 1986 with the intention of developing low cost technologies to aid 3rd world arid/desert regions. The group, consisting of English ex patriots, settled in an abandoned Spanish village and began experimenting with reforestation and solar energy. Over the past two decades, the project's focus has changed several times. The community is rooted in permaculture principles, an approach to sustainable living developed by two Australians in the 1970s.
Presently, Sunseed occupies four houses in the small village, operates four gardens, and hosts hundreds of volunteers year round. There are nine full time staff residents, and a board of trustees who help operate projects from abroad.

One of the main principles of permaculture is painted on the sign above. The temperatures throughout our stay ranged from 95 to 100 degrees daily. On our first day, we learned how to look after ourselves by locating the fresh water pond in the valley nearby.

The swimming hole was VERY cold and refreshing, and we frequented it daily as it was the only way to escape from the oppressing dry heat and sun. The water was crystal clear, and the turtles nearby mostly left us alone as we swam and waded in the shade.

Bamboo grew near the water throughout the valley. There was also a ram pump to provide river water to the village. The water isn't drinkable because of the high amount of gypsum, but residents use the water for irrigation and dish washing.



The irrigation ditches throughout the village were built by the Moors in the 15th century. It's amazing to think that a system this old functions so well! The river through the
Molinas valley is one of the few that still flow year round. Due to high amounts of gypsum mines in the area, most of the rivers have dried up. This also creates a fire problem in the summer. During our two week stay, we saw three fires and had to evacuate the village for one of them.



The top of the village houses a large yurt for community activities. Canya, or bamboo structures adorn many areas around the village. We taught yoga in the yurt each morning at 6 am during our stay. The yurt also hosted a cabaret show, a movie night, and an acro balance workshop for volunteers. Fun!



Six people participated in the solar hot water course during our second week. It was amazing to learn how easy they are to make! We built the main solar water panel in five days.



First we soldered the copper pipes together (5 long parallel pipes connected together at both ends). Then we attached aluminum fins to the five parallel pipes to increase the surface area collecting heat from the sun. Then we painted the pipes and fins with a primer paint and finally black paint to increase the heat absorption.



Next we built an insulated frame to house the solar collector and finally attached a single glazing of glass across the top of the insulated box. With the insulated box and glass cover, the greenhouse effect allows more heat to be collected. The finished solar collector panel was about 2 square meters in size.

The solar collector is usually mounted on a roof and water is pumped or flows through and gets heated. If the hot water is stored above the solar collector, a thermo-syphon effect will keep the water circulating without a pump. The system can be a pre-heater so that the normal water heater doesn't need as much energy to heat the water or can be the only source of hot water if you get enough sun.



Solar water heating is one of the easiest and cheapest ways to take advantage of solar energy and lower our energy bills. We plan to install one at each of our houses when we return home, and at any of our family members who would like one.

During the summer months, Sunseed's volunteer turnover is quite large. We thought the project had a lot of people during our first week. The communal meals produced massive pots of food for about two dozen people. Then, 22 Belgain boy scouts showed up. Due to a communication mix up, the project leaders weren't expecting the group for another week or so. We were suddenly 45 people, and the hottest days of summer were upon us. The boy scouts camped in a field next to the village the first few days, but then had to move into a few of the project's houses after a fire nearly destroyed their campsite.

It seemed the boy scouts were a bit bored, so we made home made chocolate one night for desert. It was fun to peel the shells, grind the beans and then enjoy the spread on home made bread!



The grinder made the beans into a smooth paste.



Fresh chocolate! Mmmmm! It was exciting to see the looks of surprise on everyone's faces when we told them about where chocolate comes from and how it's made.
Since we had never cooked for 45 people, we didn't elect to cook lunch or dinner during our stay. However, we did learn how to make bread during our stay. We consumed 16 loaves in two days! Those who did cook did a fantastic job, lunch and dinner was a great time to catch up with everyone and talk about the various projects going on.

Our friends Marcus and Marie took us to the beach on one hot afternoon. The Mediterranean was cool and perfect for floating. We spent a few hours sitting on the shore combing through rocks and then enjoyed an ice cream. Thanks Marcus!

Agave grows throughout the valley and has many uses. A local villager and agave enthusiast, Timbo, runs an agave museum in his house. He makes agave drums, lamps, sculptures and didgeridoos. His family works to plant agave in Ethiopia, as the biomass makes great low cost fuel. The plants are hardy and use virtually no resources during their long lives.

Our time at Sunseed was too short. We had planned to stay six weeks, but our schedule changed when we decided to attend the Kundalini yoga festival in France. It was great to meet so many knowledgeable, passionate people. Each day, we learned something new about how to reduce our carbon footprint. Living in an established community showed us that it is possible to live environmentally sustainably and comfortably. We also made great friends and allies for our future community living endeavors. Thanks Sunseed! We hope John, Bex, Rosa, Rob, Vejay (and kids), Jeff, James and Dara can visit us in St. Louis someday! The same goes for all the other awesome volunteers we met during our stay : Fin, Max, Ellen, Shannon, John, Hugh, Lucia, Kiana, Marie, Marcus, Hanna, Hanne, JoJo and all the boy scouts!

Hopping the Pond to Lisbon and Morocco

We enjoyed watching two movies before Josh slept on the floor of the overnight plane to Portugal. The customs check upon entering Europe was quick and easy, and we found ourselves in the bright morning sun of Lisbon. A five hour time change, combined with the red eye flight made us quite weary.

Our couch surfing hosts Paulo and Sofia were preparing for work when we arrived at their apartment. We had arranged a visit with them before leaving Brasil, and their hospitality was much needed and refreshing. They left us a cell phone and maps to the city. Although we only stayed one night with this awesome couple, we had a great time! We learned about LOMO photography, a low-fi camera brand from Gemany, while we made a delicious vegetarian dinner together. We traded travel stories and laughed a lot throuoghout the evening. For our first couchsurf, we were elated to have this awesome cultural exchange. If we hadn't had our sights so strongly set on visitng Morocco, we would have stayed much longer. Thanks Paulo and Sofia! We can't wait until you visit the US so we can host you in our fair river city! :)

During our one day in Lisbon, we went to the beach. The water was really cold, but we warmed up by practicing yoga on the shore. That night, we caught an overnight bus to Tarifa, where the ferries cross the Straight of Gibralter to Tangiers.

Another night with little sleep made our fist day in Morocco slightly surreal. We took a small guided tour of Tangiers during our first afternoon. He took us to the Medina, the shopping district of the city. The streets are quite narrow and filled with tailors, fabric stores, and food stalls. We went to the roof of a carpet seller to catch this beautiful panorama of the city.

After climbing down the four narrow flights of stairs, the owners tried to sell us carpets and tapestries. They brought out many beautiful samples and we smiled and said they were very nice but we were traveling and didn't want to carry a carpet with us. The prices included shipping home, of course. They persisted by giving us mint tea and showing us more carpets. The situation became quite ridiculous, as they kept shouting at us to name our best price for the carpet, and we just kept smiling and trying to tell them we didn't want to buy anything. This went on for some time until finally we stood up and shouted NO and then left the building. We laughed all the way back to our hostal and promptly went to bed to catch up on some much needed sleep.

We only had three days to spend in Morocco, not enough time to visit our first pick, Marakesch (a twelve hour bus ride from Tangiers). A few fellow travelers mentioned Chefchaouen, a city three hours inland, as a good place to visit if time was limited. We made the trip on a croweded hot bus and arrived in time for the town's anual music festival. An otherwise sleepy small town, this hot July weekend was the place to be in Morocco! It was quite nice to see other Moroccan tourists from all over the country enjoying music and relaxing by the cool river.

View of Chefchaouen from the Rif mountains.

The city was settled in the 15th century. Jewish residents painted the doors of the city blue at one time, and this accent color is still visible from every point. A more typical Muslim color would be green, but the color choice persists. Perhaps our top city for inspiring views and vistas, we took lots of fotos!

Each little streeet had a perfect foto waiting to be snapped. It was easy to get lost in the Medina, the streets were so narrow and winding it was hard to tell where you were. The winding walks were full of tourists and children during our three day stay.

The festival had three stages throughout town. It was fun to see Moroccans boogie! Well, there wasn't really much dancing going on but we think everyone had a great time just the same.