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Navarra is breathtaking; lush hills and valleys, villages and churches built with ancient stone, a distinctive Roman bridge, wind turbines, and the requisite Basque aupa in response to hola! While we just arrived from Logroño yesterday, I’m astounded by how much there is to see just outside Pamplona. I read Navarra leads Europe in the use of renewable energy and Spain in education.

We spent yesterday night near Artazu, a village on the Arga river. The air was much warmer than the night before, and we opened the back door of the van to take advantage of our new two burner camping stove.

The next morning we walked a loop around our camping spot next to a small ermita meeting some Sunday cyclists on the way back. We did our daily cleaning (hand broom, vacuum, shake dog bed, etc.) and took off. A few kilometers away is Puente La Reina. It’s the meeting point of the camino francés and camino aragonés and there are guest houses and restaurants catered towards pilgrims.

We stopped at Casa Martija mostly to charge the MacBook but enjoyed a delicious vegetarian torta de txantxigorri with a coffee. As we walked through the town, signs of the massive national huelga feminista were everywhere. It is amazing to see how much feminism permeates even small towns.

Finding a good camping spot can be tricky some days. We try heading down a bumpy road only for it to lead nowhere. Or we rely too much on coordinates found on a van camping app and it ends up being underwhelming.

But other times, we find those gems through no doing of our own; empty patches next to rivers tucked away, or a dirt road winding up into farmland outside the city. We’ve learned a lot camping through California to Oklahoma and with the van in Andalusia. One things keeps resonating with us; don’t force anything.

On our way back from the afternoon’s walk, we were treated to grandeur.

I am hesitant to write this even now, mostly because I’m scatterbrained and a terrible writer. I linked to blog posts from others who are more knowledgeable in certain topics to keep this short. You might not know I’m Muslim. Or you might consider me too recent a convert, not informed enough. It should be obvious, but these are just my thoughts and I speak for myself. In some stricter circles, it might be considered inappropriate to do so without having some type of qualification. I don’t speak Arabic and I wasn’t raised in a Muslim household. But these are blessings and my reality. I am a Muslim by choice. I have unique perspective and a voice. As the Qur’an commands of us, we must come to know one another [49:13]. Here is a part of me.

Sometimes, I have the feeling I’ve lived two separate lifetimes. In some way, I have. It started when I woke up one morning after the doctors pulled a tube out of my throat in the ICU. That tube helped me breathe while my body and a drug cocktail dealt with inflamed membranes in my spine and brain, poisoned blood, and renal failure. It was a year after high school and I was hospitalized with meningococcemia. Before then, I was a very average teenager in the suburban sprawl of the San Gabriel Valley playing in a band, hanging out with friends, and going to shows. I lived in my bubble. But after that morning, something changed. I no longer desired to stay close to home and play video games on my free time. I wanted to use my brain. I needed to see and feel all life.

I still have to step outside myself to acknowledge how undeservedly privileged and grateful I am for all of it. That urge mixed with a wandering way of life opened up new experiences, people from different cultures to learn from, and large periods of time to read and think for a heavy dose of serious introspection.

Knots on the Rope of God

I have spent ten years reading widely about Islam. I was in university and reading about language, elementary physics, and agriculture. At first, Islam was just something else I didn’t know about. I grew up in a secular household in California, I wasn’t on a religious quest. But I was eager to understand more.

• It was clear that Islam wasn’t what the mainstream media portrayed. They only let extremists “speak” for 1.7 billion people.
• A majority of the world (past and present) believes in something; divine, intangible, omniscient, omnipotent, transcendent, immanent, whatever. It indicated some universal truth.
• It wasn’t difficult for me to suppose there are limits to what we can perceive and really know about regarding our origins and the big questions.
• As the newest Abrahamic religion, Islam is a continuation of that which came before rather than a separate system [16:123].
• The Qur’an is clear that God has no gender, doesn’t have a son, and is above our comprehension [2:255]. This was a mini-revelation. Attending Catholic high school, God had been significantly engendered and anthropomorphized.
• I found Ahmed Hulusi’s books randomly in my university library. God (‘Allāh’ in Arabic) isn’t a sky-god. In fact, Allāh challenges the very notion of a god in the Qur’an (“There is no god, there is only Allāh”).
• Thousands of prophets went to their communities since time immemorial, sent (inspired) to preach the same message; God is One, do good deeds, serve God alone, flee false idols (mental or physical), prepare for the end of this life. Some of them are named, others not. I thought of religion as localized and exclusivist. Was the Buddha a prophet? Was Mary? [3:42] Was there was a prophet somewhere on the Californian coast in 356 AD? (I just picked a time and place randomly, I don’t know of a prophet like this.) How did their communities react to such a disruption of the status quo? Was it similar to what the Quraysh did when the Prophet Muhammad started speaking up? [10:16] What do all powerful, vested interests do when iconoclasts disrupt the status quo?
• So much reading on science and Islam. Science and God are not mutually exclusive. Science is a fantastic system of inquiry. God is the reality. The Qur’an, while not a science book, is a book of guidance that contains stories of Prophets and proofs of God. Science illuminated aspects of the Qur’an for me. I didn’t need to erase any of my previously held scientific beliefs. A bigger focus came into view. God, the Subtle [22:63], works through natural laws.

From these basics, new questions and lines of thinking emerged. I gradually peeled away layers of ignorance that had built up by me without even knowing it. After university, I headed to West Africa. I lived in Muslim-majority countries for seven years. I passed the time on verandas and at cafés talking with friends and acquaintances. After that early period in Oregon with just books and Sufi poetry, I witnessed lived Islam. It didn’t stay in my head, it become my daily experience. After taking the shahāda one Friday five years ago, I started to feel the certainty and serenity as a believer. I felt the tug on my heart and the presence of the One that is closer to me than my jugular vein 50:16 when I whispered subhānallāh, alhamdulillāh, Allāhu akbar over and over to myself in the mornings before dawn. The religious experience, as someone coming into the fold, was breathtaking. It pulled me away of my egoistic, materialistic, hedonistic priorities, and scrubbed the rust off of my heart.

Those who come to Islam because they wish to draw closer to God have no problem with a multiform Islam radiating from a single revealed paradigmatic core. But those who come to Islam seeking an identity will find the multiplicity of traditional Muslim cultures intolerable. — Abdal Hakim Murad

Critical Examinations

And hold fast to the rope of God and do not become divided. — Sūrah 3:103

As I continued to live Islam according to my understanding, I never ceased exploring the roots and branches of Islam. But some things weren’t adding up for me.

• Sunni and Shī’a: Within fifty years of the Prophet Muhammad’s death, Muslims divided themselves. Over time, these groups (also sub-groups, it gets complicated) grew more divergent, each claiming salvific exclusivism. I spent a year looking into the various Shī’a narratives because I wanted to understand the rationale of the imamate, and how much of the theology is built around the history of the early nascent community of believers after the prophet. Reccomended blog posts: A Mercy Case’s Have I Failed Fatima? and Definitely Not A Conspiracy: Fact Review of the Ahl al-Kisa in Early Islam
• My interest in the Shī’a developed as the fascists of the so-called Islamic State used fiqh and the hadith to supercede the Qur’an for their justifications for enslaving Yazidi women and destroying antiquities in Palmyra. I knew this wasn’t the Islam that I knew. I had to prove to myself and others that this wasn’t the case. Reccomended blog posts: Flag Actual’s Contradictions: Mainstream Sharia versus Quranic Axioms
• Digging deeper into the hadith, the narrations of events of the Prophet, his companions, and the Shi’a imam’s lives, one becomes even more confused. The whole arch of Muslim sectarianism is on display. Now remember that this was state-funded by the caliphs and emirs across the Muslims world. I won’t get into specifics here, I will later. I’ve heard the arguments; hadith re-evaluation is an orientalist’s pursuit, the science of hadith has properly found a way to deal with the contradictory narrations. Suffice it to say, hadith have been the most complex issue for me. Reccomended blog posts: Black Flag Actual’s The Hidden History of Our ‘Islamic Jurisprudence’ and The Fatal Feminist’s Hadith

Alhamdulillāh, despite having these reservations upon which the constructed orthodoxy lays religious authority, my certainty in the Qur’an has actually been strengthened. But I was unsure of so many other things. So what happened? I happened. Like in the hospital and West Africa, my time in Peru became a period of rapid development and experience in such a short time. There, I had powerful experiences that started to deconstruct my big stupid ego, showed me death is not to be feared, encouraged me in sharing my thoughts on socialism and vegetarianism as spiritual commitments, gave me the courage to trust myself more, and to speak truth to power. It’s strange that I needed to leave a Muslim country to feel more Muslim, but God knows, and I know nothing.

Every day, I get more anxious. Sometimes, I feel I carry the weight of the world in my chest, and these days, it’s pretty fucking heavy. Climate change, fascism, inequality, terrible leaders, hypocrites, etc. I’m saying all this because our planet is in bad shape. Does this mean I’m a negative person? Actually, quite the opposite. We have a world to win. How do we reach our highest potential in this world? Instead of turning inward, shutting our doors and ignore the fitna (civil strife), as one hadith would tell us, we must collaborate and help each other in this world. This is a priority.

The Qur’an has shown how we can get this done, to provide peace and security for all. Let’s speak plainly and personally for those who want to know. If you still have hangups about Islam, Allah, the Prophet, or the Qur’an. Reach out. I don’t do debates, but I can point the way for a fellow traveler on this path. Come to your own conclusions about it.

Micro-Qur’an

Peace to all who follow guidance. — Sūrah 20:47

To that end, I’m starting something called Micro-Qur’an. Each post will be a few ayat, proofs or verses of the Qur’an. I’ll use different translations and link to other blogs or books that can elaborate, and we can deepen our understanding of the material. This is a non-sectarian platform.

Thanks for reading. Salām.

Bernie Sanders in the Vermont Freeman Weekend edition back in November 1969:

The Revolution is coming and it is a very beautiful revolution. It is beautiful because, in its deepest sense, it is quiet, gentle, and all pervasive. It KNOWS. What is most important is this revolution will require no guns, no commandants, no screaming “leaders,” and no vicious publications accusing everyone else of being counter-revolutionary. The revolution comes when two strangers smile at each other, when a father refuses to send his child to school because schools destroy children, when a commune is started and people begin to trust each other, when a young man refuses to go to war, and when a girl pushes aside all that her mother has ‘taught’ her and accepts her boyfriend’s love. The revolution comes when young people throughout the world take control of their own lives and when people everywhere begin to look each other in the eyes and say hello, without fear. This is the revolution, this is the strength, and with this behind us no politician or general will ever stop us. We shall win!

Bernie wrote a lot of stuff. Some of it is pretty out there, I hear. But regardless, it is a paper trail. And you can tell he’s been thinking and refining his ideas for much longer than his political career. This is who we need; a human. Not a symbol, a figurehead, a billionaire, nor a political weathervane.

Trump can have Twitter. Bernie’s campaign should get on Micro.blog, the man needs a blog.

You probably need a budget. It can be as simple as a paper and pencil. There are also a variety of apps depending on your needs and spending habits. I started using Trail Wallet on my phone through Latin America to keep track of our expenses and with this trip in Andalusia, it’s starting to feel necessary. Another app that is more for non-travel budgeting is Pennies which might work better for others.

Trail Wallet was created by Simon Fairbairn, one half of a digital nomadic couple from the UK who have been traveling nonstop since 2010. You can organize your spending by month or trip, and when you start tinkering with the options you’ll see you can customize it to your liking. You also have the ability to add categories of spending to a trip. In Latin America, we created an Alqo category for his food, veterinarian visits, and his dental surgery in Lima. We didn’t use tags at all, but now we have a personal category for anything extra that isn’t completely necessary or useful to both of us. Instead of separating those things into two categories, one for me and one for Patricia, we just tag our names to an item. It doesn’t matter how much each of us spends, but that we add it to know where our money goes. Patricia bought a pair of Natural World ecological shoes in Ronda, made locally in La Rioja, Spain using 100% organic raw materials and we just tagged her name next to the item. (I’ve already had mine since December. They’re the best.)

Our categories for van travel are different than our categories for backpacking. For our three weeks in Andalusia and our first van trip, we have:

• Groceries: any food items to be cooked or prepared, water, etc.
• Eating Out: cafés, churrerías, restaurants
• Fuel: diesel, self-explanatory
• Miscellaneous: things for the van, such as Campingaz refills, parking meters in cities, or other supplies
• Personal: see above
• Accommodation: occasional campground and one time just a shower
• Entertainment: self-explanatory

Trail Wallet allows multiple currencies in the same trip and fetches the current exchange rate. This is really handy if you buy a plane ticket or something online in dollars but are traveling in a different country. It shows your expenses in list view or pie chart, exports your trip data into a CSV file, can set a daily budget to aim for throughout the day.

The feasibility of long-term travel lives and dies by a daily average, especially if there is no income generation. In some Latin American countries, we missed our target by a few extra dollars a day. For Andalusia and our first time traveling this way, we decided on $36.50 between the two of us, for no other reason than it is close to €1,000 for a month. Our daily average was $35.62, or $17.81 per person per day. Not bad. Now that we’re “back home”, we feel we can reduce this even further (Other than our van, we haven’t had a place of our own since May 2017 when we left Mauritania. I’m ready for Germany.) Here’s the breakdown for three weeks in Andalusia:

Obviously, our biggest expenses were fuel and groceries. Accommodation in Latin America included hostels but here, we were able to find free camping spots everywhere we went; on a hill overlooking Granada, in a meadow for two days near Grazalema, or a quiet spot off the road near olive farms.

There is a definite lack of touristy things in this budget. We prefer hiking and being outdoors these days. And not everyone would spend this much on groceries. Some are perfectly happy buying readymade meals or eating out everyday. I used to be this way. We love to cook and eat healthy and we buy local or bio in herbolarios.

Eating out is still bigger than we’d like. We met friends and family in Caceres and Sevilla and we invited them to eat. Subtracting these three meals, it would be $45.53. The remaining six items were cafés and a Moroccan lunch in Granada.

Slowing down helps immensely. Not everyone has the desire do this, especially for working professionals who have only a few weeks vacation a year, but it works for us. This will be even easier in the future when I can use a mobile hotspot and iPad to work from the van.

We might have found an apartment in Cologne, Germany with the help of good friends. If everything works out, we will be there in early March. In the meantime, we decided to shorten our trip down south, head back to Madrid, and get Holly ready for version 2.0. We deliberately kept things simple and I’m glad we did. Now instead of starting from scratch, we’ll be able to add to the furniture, making it more spacious and efficient. We want to build out the back for an outdoor kitchen area, perfect for spring and summer.

A few days ago we also decided to skip Córdoba and head to Granada. Both of us never worry about missing something in Spain because there will be opportunities to visit these places again in the future. It’s a small country with so much to see and do.

Before Granada, we spent the night near Alhama de Granada. A small town with a lot of Moorish history, we were drawn to the aguas termales. We visited the first day and there were different groups of people all enjoying the warm water; a group of young Moroccan guys, a French couple with two dogs in an RV, an older Andalusian man who speaks tons of languages and bathes there everyday.

We camped near a campo filled with olive trees by a river and the next day, we quickly woke up and went back for a morning wash. No one was there, the air was fresh and cool, and we both felt energized for a day in the city of Granada.