Earthship: An Ant Can Build its Home, Why Can’t We?

Todos Santos, Mexico

Todos Santos is small and there’s not a lot to see. People love it because the weather is breezy, it’s next to the beach and has a small-town hippie feeling.

I heard I should visit the Earthship, out in the beach area where all the expats live.

The guys at the taco stand warned me it would take an hour or more to walk there but I don’t really have a busy schedule.

I did a bit of digging to discover this was not the only Earthship, there is a movement to promote sustainable design and create buildings that can exist anywhere in the world while providing electricity, drinkable water, contained sewage treatment and sustainable food production.

I found this Sweet Green Dreams site of one of the people who made it, she recounts the process. It’s pretty incredible.

This kind of stuff fascinates me and is why I went to hang out with the Hare Krishna in Peru, who do this with the Truly village.

I want to meet people who think and act differently.

So while I am a self-professed lazy traveler who hates hiking, walking somewhere for an hour is nothing.

An hour later I triumphantly walked up to the front door and knocked.

No response.

Perhaps I should have called in advance, after all this is low season in Mexico and this is used as a hotel. I knock again.

No response. No one is home.

They are probably all at the beach like everyone else on Sundays.

I resign myself to walking back to town, the clouds have cleared and it’s getting hot but I’m not letting it get to me.

Five minutes into the long way home a truck stops. It’s one of the construction workers who is building some foreigners house, he is going back into town and asks if I want a lift.

If you have never been to Mexico you would be wary but this is common in small towns.

I hop in and meet Manuel who works 7 days a week building foreigners’ home, he tells me it’s too hot to be walking and I have to agree.

This would never happen at home. Everyone would probably just drive past me and think  wow that girl must be hot.

And that makes me smile because I said I wanted to meet people who think and act differently.

I didn’t see inside the Earthship but I did meet Manuel.