When I first started researching the Sunseed community in the remote south east of Spain, I couldn’t find its location anywhere on the website. When I asked why, they told me it was intentional. It was feared if this information was public, they would be inundated with squatters, wanderers and other nomads in no time. Upon my arrival a few weeks later, I understood why. In a country with no shortage of dread locked, dog toting hippie anarchists, this place was paradise. Tucked away in the beautiful Spanish desert, far from civilization and populated by people living on their own terms, it is exactly the kind of place you needed to keep secret.
Sunseed is a community started in the 1980’s by a group of English philanthropists who were exploring ways to live more sustainablely through appropriate technology, organic farming, and low impact, simple living. Sunseed makes its home in a beautiful desert river valley, amidst a protected national park. Abandoned in the 1970’s, it was re-inhabited in the 1980’s by alternative thinking people wanting a quiet natural place to live. The whole village is off the grid, with all its electricity coming from photovoltaics, and all the water from a Moorish aqueduct built 1000 years ago. With no roads, a walk along the windy village paths brings you past beautifully restored Spanish homes, old ruins, new gardens on ancient terraces, and scores of cactus and agave.
At first glance, some people are turned off by the hippie feel of this place. The eco-mullet, as I came to call it, was quite a common hairstyle in the village – dreads in back, shaved in front. Say what you will, at least these hippies are putting their money where their mouth is. They are reducing their impact by living with less, and working damn hard to provide for themselves by putting in long hours gardening or fixing up the crumbing homes they inhabit. The community itself had a strict vegetarian policy, and for the time I was there, it was almost completely vegan. Conversation about things like factory farming or even animal domestication raised tempers faster than calling a Catalan Spanish. Although I didn’t always agree with everything we discussed, I absorbed it all and appreciated the fact that everyone spoke their mind and followed through with the lifestyles they were espousing.
I spent 7 weeks there in total, working on various tasks – making a geodesic dome made from caña (a local version of bamboo), installing a solar water heater, and maintaining the ancient water system. I lived in a community where we shared all the responsibilities of everyday life – Even I had to cooking meals for over 20 people sometimes. But it wasn’t all hard work…this is Spain after all. During the long midday siesta, when it was too hot to work, we’d take a stroll down the river, navigating our way through the groves of wild caña to take a dip in the swimming hole. At night, we’d hang around playing music, or just share stories with new friends from around the world. I learned there is more than one way to live, even in the West, and that the alternative can be personally rewarding and much better for the world around us. I believe the answer is somewhere in the middle, between my hyper consumerism lifestyle back home and my time being self reliant in the Spanish desert. Sunseed provided me with perspective, and after all the great friends and experiences I had there, this is what I will remember most.
