Our 2012 destination was Santorini, where we were due for a visit with Craig at Atlantis Books and to do an eight-week shamatha and vipaśyanā retreat. These things we did, and were done most pleasantly so. Our retreat location was in Tholos, a house of a friend who was away and Rosy the little monster/dog we kept for our stay. This island is filled with remarkable friends, whom we spent far too little time with; we shall return soon I hope to sit properly with you all.
Karma Berchen Ling is a Diamond Way Tibetan Buddhist center high in the mountains of the Peloponnese. We stayed for a couple nights and befriended the wonderful couple managing the place. Striking vistas and a surprise snowstorm made for a fantastic 30km descent with a lunch of goat soup and depositing us right back to the warm sea.
It was a nice little retreat, there’s a cave and a stupa. The only inconvenience was the cold weather and that we caught a cold.
There are group retreats taking place there year long, so if you live in Greece and want to learn meditation in the traditional buddhist tantric way, this might be the place for you.
Taking the handlebars of our life: photos showing our life on the road between Malaga, Spain → Marseille, France.
Today we gave a presentation to the students of Jeremy’s university journalism course in Marseille. We spoke about the motivation for our trip, our goals, logistics, and the meaning and realizations we’ve found along the way, and then were interviewed by the students. Their project is to write articles using us as their subject. We felt very well received and the students asked excellent questions; I think perhaps because the French love both cycling and discussing lifestyle choices.
To the students reading this post, thank you for having us, and for your incisive questions. Here are some links related to our talk that you might find useful.
We have a page with resources about lifestyle design and living lucidly.
Links to information about bicycle touring:
Hospitality exchange networks we use:
We also have used Airbnb instead of hotels.
When we arrive in Greece we will be staying with our friends at Atlantis Books. It was inspired by Shakespeare and Company in Paris, where I first met Jeremy.
UPDATE: Eugénie’s paper has been published online with lexpress.fr.
Cost to have one boot zipper replaced? €35! If you have already decided to travel slowly, you might just continue doing everything slowly. Photos of stitching a new zipper into Alma’s boots with a handmade travel awl (a gift from the polymath Zeke Lunder).
The essence is travelling.
We’ve had our wheels on the road now for seven weeks, passing through 1500km of other people’s lives. The bicycle brings us great joy, but the significance of this trip has not manifested as cycling. This trip has been about adopting a new lifestyle, new frames of mind, and new connections to the land and people we meet. We’ve transformed in ways that would occur similarly if we travelled by sailboat, horse, or shoelaces.
