A Hammockeer's Nightmare

Camping so far on this trip has been very difficult. And by camping I mean camping for free or "wild camping" as it is referred to by those in the know.

What I have along to camp with are 2 hammocks (a one person hammock and a 1 person hammock that can squeeze 2 people) a one person bivy a tarp and also I can just sleep out under the stars. With this combination of options you would think that sleeping out would not be hard to do but you would be as wrong as I was.

Firstly, let me describe what Hammockeering is:

Ham·mock·eer·ing
      Verb.
Hanging an easily swung length of canvas or heavy netting between two natural features, often requiring ingenious use of rigging, in an area in which participants possibly use a map and compass to find their way through unfamiliar territory by incorporating any of the skills of rock climbing, climbing on ice, kayaking, canoeing, snowshoeing, hang gliding, rappelling, skiing, swimming, bicycling on trails or roads or neither, unicycling, riding in a shopping cart down a hill, swinging on vines or any other form of non-motorized movement.

This is the definition that I came up with years ago. A Hammockeer being someone that participates in hammockeering. That us what I consider myself and recently Spain has been a nightmare in that respect.

First let's consider the parks. While we have not gone through any National Parks we have traveled many miles through Natural Parks. A Natural park as far as I can tell is privately owned land that remains in its natural state. This is great except whoever owns the land fences it off with 5 foot fences and barb wire. Literally the 75 miles or so that I've traveled through natural parks has been completely fenced off just 5 feet from the road.

Next we move into farmland. Completely barren of trees. None by roads or streams or to separate the fields. The tallest plants are grape vines. I'll bike 40 miles through these areas and only see one or two bad places to set up.

And now we are in olive orchards country. This is the worst. Over 100 miles I will see 10s of thousands of trees, all of them, every single one, is trimmed too short and spaced too far for my hammocks. Look at the pictures. The orchards are beautiful but after looking at them for a day I crave to see two trees not spaced exactly 20 yards apart.

Of course none of this would be a problem if it hadn't been raining every night since getting to Spain. We did try to sleep in a tarp shelter in the orchards that held out in the rain for about 5 hours before we both crawled into the bivy.

Fortunately hostels are pretty cheap here. It would just be nice not have to resort to them so often.