The place in the pics is near a city called Mogi das Cruzes (see maps above) which is closer to São Paulo and therefore makes getting to work every day a bit easier (don´t let´s even start thinking about the traffic nightmare that awaits! No pain, no gain!).

With 23 000m² of land, we were immediately taken aback upon our arrival by the amount of space we would have to play with. Two little houses inhabited 7 000m² of cleared land (on which we plan to create a permaculture system, green house, communal kitchen and eventual eco-houses – the current grassy bit will soon be mowed to reveal masses of lawn, part of which will be transformed into farmed land while the grass clippings will be used for mulch or compost) and far in the distance lay what seemed like thousands of trees. Unbeknown to us, the best was yet to come.

Having said our goodbyes to the estate agent in town, we headed back to the site for another look around, braved the potentially snake-filled long grass, and entered the forest at the back. And that’s when our minds almost exploded. Trees and trees and trees and trees, flanked by hills/mountains on both sides, as far as the eye could see, even after 10 minutes of walking along the over-grown path that followed the small stream that is also part of the property! On either side of the property were 2 forest reserves, and in front another sort of reserve that exists to preserve the water source that feeds one of the biggest rivers that provides drinking water to SP.