The E1 project is a very special one, probably one of the most transformative, meaningful and inspirationals of my life.
Like many deep things, it started with a short conversation and a low quality picture, I still recall what happened in that friend’s house while having dinner around July 2016. A good friend of mine with wide experience in american cars mentioned a great motorhome called “Anahi Alesso”, which looked like a GMC motorhome of the 80s. I made a quick search, a post in a classified website came up, and the picture I saw was the next one:
Don’t ask me what struck me or what happened, but it was that small picture, with that old fashioned truck, jeep wheels, those headlights, panoramic windshield, big ac on the roof, double axle… in a dirt road somewhere, the whole little image called me deeply. There were more pictures and descriptions of the motorhome, but it was just that picture that caught my eye and I wanted to find more.
The next day or so I contacted the owner, went to visit him in Quilmes, about an hour or more from home. The motorhome was in very good shape, of course it was old, in many good and challenging ways, but in general, it was well maintained and built. Then I went a second time with my good friend Ale, who has deep experience with vehicles and buying them, his opinion was just a sentence: “you have to buy it”, and I thank god for his determination.
I didn’t have enough to afford it, but something special also happened with the owner, in a way, he just wanted to sell it to me, so I arranged to give him a down payment. I would go to Burning Man that year and bring the rest after the trip. I remember Ale said it didn’t make any sense to make a down payment for a used and old car, but it worked.
So in October 2016 I was 34 years old and I bought the first four-wheel vehicle of my life, it was this old 1980 truck, with a Ford chassis, a Perkins 6 engine, and bodywork developed by Anahi to make the Alesso model. It was so special that I called it E1, referring to a series #1 of an Emancipation process – little I know it will become my home for the next decade, and I continue counting while I write these lines.
Like many big ventures they can be explained in many ways, but I remember the plan at that time was:
- to leave my job, yes, at the company I’ve started 10 years before.
- to go to live into this motorhome and learn more about it.
- to make trips out of the city to spend more time in nature.
That was “the plan”, I think in my head the unconscious thinking was: I don’t know what to do with my life but having more time and nature will solve it.
I recall by that time that some friends and my mom made those questions to try to get me into reason, but I think they knew how stubborn I could be with something like this, and to sum up, I didn’t have much to lose. I didn’t have debts, I didn’t have kids, I didn’t have something that stuck me into a place…I didn’t have anything, but at the same time, everything to discover. The next 10 years would become the most challenging, adventurous and life changing years of my life.
Anyway, going back to the story line, for the first period my good friend Ale was a huge help on fixing key parts while also helping me to park it at his home. He made countless improvements with the fuel pump, the suspension, the steering, the fuel tank (which was totally full of dust, the guy who cleaned it said he never saw something like this before), wheels, radiator, lighting… I think that besides opening the block of the engine, he fixed or improved everything on the motor/vehicle side.
Then in April 2017 I left my rented apartment and I went to live into it, first in a parking lot in Villa Urquiza, then on a street in Colegiales, eventually for a longer period in a public space next to the Urquiza Railway in Chacarita, and lastly for the summer of 2019 in front to El Hangar in Villa Crespo, all this in the city of Buenos Aires, in total it was about two years.
During that period I did many improvements to make it more updated, comfortable and livable. It was so rewarding to be working/playing on something where the user was myself, without any kind of constraints of time or so, it evolved into a love that I continue growing and growing, which probably made Wildcraft Projects happen. I’m sure it has given me many nice things and also not so good, like the incapacity to conceal, I was my own boss, my own client, my own contractor… It’s a spirit of freedom that is difficult to put into words for someone who likes to build.
And to sump up to making it my own little hobby and school for fixing stuff, I was also having some of my most memorable trips of my life:
- 2017, 2018 and 2019 to Fuego Austral (regional Burning Man) in Tandil, Argentina, towing the big trailer for the Pampa Warro art installation – a place, a piece of art and a group of friends which will shape all the next years of my life.
- 2018 to Patagonia, Argentina, for a month-long trip that taught me how to travel in many ways and also gave me the chance to hike in the mountains as I never did before.
- 2019 two trips to Uruguay that brought me to the place I chose to stay and live, last E1s trip, or who knows…
In between and after that I’ve made short trips to Chascomus (Argentina), Arequita and Chuy (Uruguay), but never again a big one.
Meanwhile, there were things that I was learning and that were not working that good. First of all, it was an old motorhome, in a huge city, to get out of it, I needed to drive at least 2 hours, and even after that, it was difficult to be in real nature.
In addition, even though E1 is one of the loves of my life, and I will always be on its side, every so often something broke down and it’s not easy to fix a truck on the road. Between these, I almost completely lost the brakes on the road. Also, on the trip to Patagonia, in the middle of nowhere we broke the rear differential. And in Uruguay I had to fix the gear box. All of them, big parts of a vehicle, they cost money, time, and it started to make me feel a little heavy – which I think made me travel uber light in the next few years. Fortunately, this vehicle ended up being a basic Ford truck, which in latin america, besides a Mercedes-Benz, it’s everywhere. Definitely it’s a great motorhome for living, comfortable everywhere, but for traveling, it’s old, very wide on the road, and… well, things happen.
Last but not least, I was having the time, the nature, the power and the will, but I knew I wasn’t achieving the state of mind and spirit I was searching for. That eventually brought me into leaving Buenos Aires and Argentina completely, and moving to the countryside in Uruguay, which connects directly to the beginning of Base Tranquilidad. Today, after all this time, I think I can admit that the only way to leave the city that gave me birth was by choosing my next destination, romantically speaking or not, on wheels, over the home I would live.
E1 gave me the chance to loose chains, to start again, to build and travel, which are two of the things I enjoy most in life. E1 became my home and a witness of my most happy and difficult times of the last part of my life. E1 was like a womb that gave birth again – the previous owner actually died after selling it, don’t know if it was a coincidence, but gave life to me. If I could just tell that owner all about what happened with this vehicle for all these years, I think it would be difficult to understand or believe, but I will always be totally thankful with him.
It was in these years that I chose to consciously to know myself, to get in contact with reality as deep as I could, to avoid compromises or excuses as far as possible… and in that commitment I chose to stay in South America, I went to live and learn what nature is, my dad left this dimension, I loved without knowing I was loving probably by being overwhelmed with myself, I had my first and closest contact with depression, I felt deeply what missing and regretting is, while also as free and light as anybody I think can be, of course, my hair changed from mostly color to many of white… I think I’ve become someone many people would prefer not to listen or be around, but I’m still learning, to shut up, to understand, to grow, to live, this 10 years were possibly the biggest school I attended in my life, and there was no program, no institution, there was just one thing, that vehicle.
I will also like to thank Ale, for being my partner in crime with this venture. We’ve been friends since we were 4 years old, my longest friendship relationship, and again, coincidence or not, he helped me at 34 to start again.
I also want to specially thank Choique, Javi, Ale V, and Santi, who travelled with me to Fuego Austral in Tandil, Javi also came with me to Uruguay, and on the way back the Dragoncito. With Choique we made that unforgettable trip to Patagonia, that stunning video is from him.
With Flor, we traveled to Uruguay, and we lived in E1 for about 2 years. It was our room, our kitchen, our everything for a period we started from scratch. I also want to very specially thank her, between E1, Panga and her, they’ve been the best teachers I had in this last period of life.
It’s still bizarre to talk about a “thing” in such a special and dear way, but if our bodies are our vehicle to transition life, I think E1 was part of the body of my body, thank you for giving me such an opportunity.
