Thursday 23 December 12:15 our world was literally almost turned upside down. The front wheel got of the road and with a lot of bad luck we ended up on its side in a ditch.

What went through my mind the moment we knew the car was going to overturn? Besides the fear that we might turn completely upside down, my strongest thought was that this meant the end of our free life. The existence that we have consciously and unconsciously been working towards for so many years. Away from the rat race, consuming 24/7, sitting inside, the stress and especially being lived by society. At that moment I thought that all of this would be reversed in one blow. We climbed out of the car, stunned. All very surreal. Once out of the car we suddenly thought of Dobbe. I hadn't heard him bark, was that a good or a bad sign? Bad scenarios ran through my head. Berto crawled back into the car and not much later pushed Dobbe up through the door where I picked him up. All the while he had been quietly waiting for us at the bottom of the car, fully convinced that we were coming to rescue him, my dear Dobbe.

I never thought for a moment that we would not survive in a physical sense, only mentally. At that moment I literally died mentally for a while… But luckily it turned out to be only a coma from which I woke up again. After all, you must act, save what can be saved, and support each other. Slowly you get out of the black again. The hope gets back that everything will be all right, that we will soon be able to resume our journey, but above all the knowledge that nothing or no one can take away our free life. That is something that is very deep inside, which is now anchored in us. Everything will be fine, if not then anyway. A saying of a dear friend of the past, and my saying for life ever since. Because it is so true!

Ps. Thanks for all supporting and warm reactions people all over the world send to us. Special thanks to @caseshotel where we could stay the nights after it happened despite being closed for Christmas. We wouldn't have known what to do without a warm shelter where we could sleep and recover. Thanks to the local Spanish police, fire brigade and ambulance for their reassuring words, patience and support. Thanks to the salvage company that, who with a lot of persistency and creativity, finally managed to put our pickup camper back on four wheels. Many thanks to the accidental passerby, without his help it would not have been possible to salvage the car that same day. After many cold and exhausting hours we could finally relax in our hotel room that night. Most thanks are for my brother and his family who arranged everything we needed when we got back to the Netherlands. I love him to the moon and back.