Bus life and house life – raw on the road

From Portugal through Spain, France and Luxembourg to Germany – the first big trip with my future café bus took me to Germany – already a few weeks ago; now I finally get to tell you about it – and about the progress of my bus café project.

Home sweet home

The bus is not yet converted, and the furnishings are super-simple: a carpet on the tin floor in the back area, an air mattress on top, with a thin mat over it, a sheet and a cosy bedspread (all bed components are gifts from different dear people). Next to it is a small cardboard box with T-shirts and underwear, and on top hang a few hangers for clothes and a towel. Strips of fabric cut to size, attached with magnets, as curtains (when I want a bit more privacy at night). The remaining back seat (which will be removed soon, of course) serves both as an easy place to store water bottles and travel provisions and, with the backrest folded down, as a shelf for a candle in the evening and my wash bowl in the morning. I hung a few pictures on the side wall above the “bed”, and there are colourful cloths from the gypsy market above the seats. With the back seat still in, it’s a bit cramped, the air mattress is slanted and wedged between the bench and the back door, but the length is just enough for me to stretch out my body. I hadn’t slept that well in months!

Bus life

I enjoyed being on the road and the super-simple bus life in my bus to the fullest – simply wonderful and for me the most harmonious way to live.
Driving wherever I want to go.
Discovering beautiful places and seeing things I may never see again. Breathtaking views when I go to bed and wake up.
Sleeping (almost) every night in a different place – preferably in nature, and every now and then – when I need a shower – at a campsite. As on the trip in spring, in the borrowed bus, I again (unplanned) followed the water. Every day took me to at least one, usually several, bodies of water. The sea, rivers, lakes. Beautiful.

I would have loved to just go on and on. But – there were people waiting for me, and tasks. In addition, the weather in Germany became much more uncomfortable after a short time. And I cannot continue working on the bus as long as I live in it anyway. So for the time being, I’ve switched back from full-time bus life to house life.

It’s so much better to live outside!

What a difference! It took me a while to get used to living in a fixed house and in a cooler climate again. After half a year of mostly outdoor living, my body feels the differences very clearly: less fresh air, less natural light. Behind walls and window panes and with the temperatures following more and thicker clothing, much less oxygen reaches my body, and much less sun. This year in particular, I have felt this aspect more clearly than ever before.

Raw food on the road

I took some melons, courgettes, cucumbers and pumpkin with me from Portugal.

September/October is a wonderful time to travel – the abundance of late summer fruits accompanied me throughout the trip. In France, the melons were also ripe (you can see a cantaloupe in the picture), and the grapes. In Germany there were just the last (and best) tomatoes and lots of plums and damsons. Plus courgettes, cucumbers and salads whereever i went.

How is the bus and café project evolving?

Sloooooowly 😀
The bus drives beautifully, not very fast, but that’s perfect as I enjoy travelling slowly and being on the road. The fuel consumption is low, which is also great.

I still worked on a small part of the rust in Portugal. Around the windows (from the outside) it looks better now. In addition, the upper edge of the front window, where the previous owner told me it sometimes rained, is now sealed – thanks to the help of a dear friend. (There are so many lovely people in my life, such a richness in our togetherness).

My plan to continue with the work here up to now has failed because I can’t find a place to do it. In a few days, however, the bus will go to a mechanic who, according to the plan, will fix the rust around the sliding door and replace a few defective hoses around the steering gear in the next 2 weeks – while I take a short trip to Egypt to the Nile – to work, see dear people there again and soak up some sun and warmth.

In order to support the flow of money to me, I have been working a lot for web clients in the last few weeks and, as is unfortunately often the case, the work on the new e-book, which was actually planned for September (as well as many other things I wanted to write here), has been neglected. But now the first eBook is almost finished and will be available here on my website later this month – as always on a donation basis. If you would like to support me and my work and the continuation of the café project and make it possible for me to offer you and others my posts, recipes, information and inspiration more often and finally also be able to offer raw food café sessions, please support me with your (regular or one-time) donation. There are many ways to do this:

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