i have arrived

yesturday morning i said goodbye michael and maobi and had them drop me off at an intersection. i was standing around trying to catch a ride. it was exciting to be heading someplace new, and i was really happy. there was a street sign that i started hiting with a stick. it was making a really beutifull noise, and it kept me entertained until i got picked up by some old guy. the old guy brought me 20 minutes down the road to v. velha where i walked for a short time and eventually got to a rotary. the air reeked of cellulose because of the factory close by. trucks full of eucolyptus trees were passing every 10 minutes. i was wearing a bright red portugal fooootball shirt in hopes of getting picked up quicker. hahahha. a good amount of cars passed by. as a car was approaching someone was parked on the other side of the road honking at my to hop in. i recognized them, they had passed me 10 minutes before. my good looks must have made them turn around. they said they could bring me all the way to where i needed to be which was castelo branco. on the way there, their car had overheated. they pulled over on the highway and poured water on the engine or something. then a police man pulled up behind them and wasnt to happy becasue they dont want anyone pulling over on the side of the highway. anyway, they dropped me off at the bus station. before i went in the driver gave me a harty handshake and gave me a powerfull look.
i stood in line to get a ticket to oliveiro do hospital. i dont know how to speak portugeuse so i wrote my destination and what time i wanted to leave. everything was working out great. after 4 hours or so i got to oliveiro do hospital. my final destination was casal do abade. the busses werent running to casal do abade at that time, it was to late. so my plan was to find a place to sleep and get the bus in the morning.before i went off in search of a place to sleep i went into the snack bar-bus stop, to find out what time the bus left in the morning. it was hard to communicate to them , so i drew a picture of a bus and i wrote 6 00 . they kept saying taxi taxi taxi, and i gestured that i didnt have allot of money. but one of the guys in the snack bar went out side and came back 2 minutes later with a cab driver that spoke a little english. his name was carlos. he said he would drive me their for 12 euro. he was a nice guy, real nice. he bought me a beer and then we were off.
chris wasnt expecting me until the next day. i tried to call him to let him know i was coming early but his phone had no service.

gets more intersting here, i guess

i had some not so good directions on how to get to his place. it was something like, go into casal do abade until you see a post box then take a right and go up the track. carlos was driving around with as much of a clue as i had. he parked out side someones house and honked his horn until someone came out. i guess he asked her if there was anyone that spoke english around here, because we ended up from there going to another house and honking untill this english guy popped out of the window. i said im looking for someone named chris ripley who has a straw bale house. the englishman said a bunch of portugeuse stuff to carlos and then looked at me and said, ok, he is going to drop you off at a bridge. when you get to the bridge go to the right and walk up the track in the woods, and he lives around there. so we drove in that direction and couldnt find the bridge or anything. so carlos went to another house and honked until they came out. he asked them if they knew where we could find chris ripley, and they said to him to drive down the road just a bit and take a left. when we got there the road led into the woods, very dark and rocky with lots of ditches. then we got to a cross roads. when you get to a fork in the road take it. right right right, michelle michelle, michelle. so i i gave him some money and thanked him and helped him back out. the path was dark, but i could see a light from a house in the distance. there were 2 dogs on the path barking at me, they ended up leading me most of the way to the house. i could smell the house from far away. when i got close i touched it and i could feel the lime coating on the straw bales. i knocked on the door and recieved a nice warm welcome from chris. what a great guy he is. full of energy. very interesting. he made me dinner and we talked for a while. he had also given me some wine that he and a neighbor had made.
he showed me to a caravan which is to be my home for the next little while. it is cold here at night, and there is no heat. but that is just how i want it .

today we started working on the inside of his house. we are removing temporary beems and putting in perminent ones. unfortuntly i ended up breaking his bath tub, but i told him i will replace it. hahahahaha.

a bit about chris,
he has been living here in portugal for 4 years. a while ago he got fed up with england and decided to get out. he was backpacking around in spain then to portugal where he was shown some land. he thought it would be a great place to start a permaculture project so he bought it a few months later. he arrived in the summer and camped out. then in the winter he moved into a small beat up ruin where he lived for 2 years while he was building his straw bale house. he is getting married in 2 weeks and is going to have a baby soon.