We had a nature “survival week”. We- Mante, Simon Liam, Luka, Benjamin and Eiko- were at the Sanctuary Lake in the south valley of Tamera for four days and three nights, equipped with our knives and a few other hand tools. We slept under a tarp and inside our sleeping bags. Mostly, we ate just what we found in our surrounding- carrots, nisperos, Swiss chard, fennel, favas wild herbs, etc.- but we also brought some potatoes, a bit of flour, salt and 1 litre of olive oil. We made our fire with a hand drill set and this was important because we didn’t bring any lighters or matches to start the fires. On the embers of the fire we cooked our food, and keep in mind we didn’t bring any cutlery or kitchen utensils with us. Roasting Swiss chard over the fire, cooking favas directly in the colas, making ash cakes on the embers and so on. To dip our ashcakes into the olive oil we needed to carve a bowl into stone. Besides gathering, cooking and eating food we practiced some hard skills, such as making atlatls, wooden bowls by using embers to burn into them, rope, fire sets and more. The most disappointing point of the whole trip for the entire group was that it didn’t rain enough. Still, we had a really nice time together and we learned a lot about what it means to manage being in nature with very little supply and few tools.
-Luka, Mante, Benjamin.
