The sustainable living dream.

Life has been crazy during the lockdown would be an understatement. While I pen this in the Month of June 2020 it has been four months of social distancing, working from home and making sure we do our bit to curb the spread of the virus. The journey we took was the beginning of our sustainable living dream.

During this period the restrictions were lifted a bit and we decided to take this opportunity to travel a little bit to a place where there would not be a lot of people. A long drive through the Stara mountains to the Rhodopes with a view of Pirin was the plan. The Village of Leshten in the Rhodopes was a perfect set up for us, splendid view, less people and amazing weather. Believe it or not it has only ten registered permanent residents but is a tourist attraction which usually gets a lot of visitors during the summers. But currently because of Covid its barely the same.

We made Hotel Leshten our camping point and decided to travel to Kovachevitsa, Ognyanovo, Delchevo and on the way back a short visit to Plovdiv. Kudos to the hotel staff who take the right precautions for sanitation, tables placed at right distances in open air and wearing masks and gloves.

This photograph of the Pirins was taken on the day of our arrival after a 7 hr drive and surviving one of the nastiest hail storms right in the middle of Dospat pass. I waited every single day for this kind of magic to happen but I guess it was not to be. I am glad I hauled myself out of the warm pool to grab the camera and make some print worthy photographs. It was like a new painting every few seconds, the light changed, the colors changed making it an almost surreal experience.  

So what’s coming next for us? This particular road trip, meeting different people, seeing the way they lead their life, we as a family have made a decision to go for sustainable living as much as possible and reduce our carbon footprint. The simplicity in their life, being one with the nature, not only taking but also giving back. The vibrant smiles on their faces, the energy, the welcoming nature left a deep impact on my mind. Why do we chase materialistic things when having so little can give us the one thing we seek the most? – Happiness.

We had been giving this a thought for quite some time now, before preaching to others we wanted to inculcate healthy living habits as a family. Our advantage is the fact that we stay in a village, have enough yard space to grow our own produce, and have every opportunity to follow basic steps to reduce our footprint. 

Here is the beginning of our journey to a sustainable lifestyle. 

When this article was posted, we had made a huge progress toward what we had decided. We hope we are able to inspire at least a handful of people do do their bit :). Read through the blog to know how we built a small organic garden without using any chemical fertilizers and started growing our own produce in limited space.