Portugal is a country that has signs on the motorway dictating no cyclists, or tractors, no happily playing children, and no horses and carts. And then another much larger one, demanding you DO NOT graze your cattle there. On the motorway!
It is a country where night falls, promptly, at 5.30, with a bit of a thud, and it’s either raining or it’s not raining, but there’s nothing in between. No such thing as drizzle, or a light shower, just full on rain. Or not.
A country where I’m told, that if eat enough of the strange custard mixture that fills every cake here, I’ll get used to it, and even grow to like it. Despite the fact that my teeth practically bounce off every time I try to bite. And if I ask where I can get a pedicure, I am met with blank looks, and then the suggestion that I go and see a chiropodist.
But I like the unfamiliarity; there are puzzles here to be worked out constantly. Why are they doing that, or what does this mean? How are they able to cook every piece of fish to perfection, and then turn any slice of meat into fossilised shoe leather? I’ve watched Masterchef: I know which one is supposed to be harder.
Camping at Frank’s
Our campsite at Moncarapacho is small and cosy, with spectacular views. It is mostly peopled with ex-pat Brits and several French couples. They come each year to over-winter here, some in camper-vans, but more and more having bought little bungalows, chalets, or converted caravans. They have well-established gardens and patios, with fairy lights, cacti and huge terracotta pots.
My favourite neighbours are called Terry and June (Terry and June! I shouldn’t enjoy that as much as I do, but I am very immature). There is also an old surfer-type dude from Holland – called Hans, naturally. He wears a necklace and shorts and very little else, and drives a beat up old camper that he’s painted beach scenes on, then glued shells and rubber octopi on top.
When he hears I’m an artist, he asks me to paint a cactus on the other side. I say yes, mainly because I like the plastic penguin sticking out of his petrol cap. Apparently, he has three different girlfriends that he brings over in rotation, and is a travelling troubadour (and you think my life’s good!).
We all go for a hill walk organised by Sylvie, an ancient Geordie lady, with a steely spine and wrist supports. We see a snake and eat strawberries from a tree, although these are usually turned into a liquor. Next time I’ll wait until they are, because it is like eating faintly fruit-flavoured gravel.
These sweet little dogs often accompany walkers up to the lookout point
Afterwards, we all convene at their favourite cafe for beer and cakes, while they organise new trips out for the following week. It strikes me that this is what retirement is like for people who can’t quit. Sylvie has a tandem. They’ve all trekked across New Zealand. They have forced themselves to like custard made of rubber. They are indomitable, even by time.
The locals
Sylvie and crew fit in well here, because the locals are no less formidable. Little old ladies in black hats and headscarves stride purposefully down the roadsides, hefting small carts of produce to sell to passers-by. The fishermen we see hauling in the catch on the beach, at Vieira de Leiria, are not young either.
One chap, who must have been well into his seventies, is in charge of scooping the fish from the net into the plastic trays that are piled up onto the truck. I count eighty, and he bends and scoops more than once for each tray, moving at a relentless pace. It takes over an hour and he never pauses for breath.
Carlos
While we are on the coast, my in-laws, Simon and Alison, fly over to see us for a few days. They kindly offer us a boat trip out exploring the Ria Formosa lagoon. Simon likes boats. He’s always had boats. He and Steve partially grew up in Southend, and even Steve had a boat when I met him. So this seems like a good idea all round.
The lagoon is created from the shelter of several long, thin islands, some inhabited, some little more than half-submerged mudflats littered with seabirds. The trip will circle these, allowing us to see the wildlife, stop off for lunch at one of the islands, and get an informative and educational understanding of that part of Portugal.
Ha.
This might easily have been our experience – but we get Carlos as our guide, and he clearly thinks of himself as a bit of a showman. Which is what the job entails, I realise this, but he may be taking it to extremes. For instance: rather than give us the information about the Islands, he tells us that we will only remember it if we work it out for ourselves, by answering a series of questions as go went along. Sounds like fun, right?
Well, not so much. The questions are all ones we can’t possibly know the answer to,and if we did, then we wouldn’t need a guided boat trip in the first place. And it also takes up a fair whack of time. At one point he actually stops the boat, and dangles the key over the side.
‘We were not going any further’, he declares, ‘until someone gets this right – on which date did the Islanders protest against the government for giving fishing rights to the Spanish?’
He goes round the boat asking each of us to guess the date. Surprisingly, out of the 365 days we could have picked, all 13 of us get it wrong. So he goes round again.
‘Think’, he barks, ‘think like a Portuguese’. We genuinely have no idea what this means. Baffled by our ignorance, he gives us a clue; ‘the Name Day’, he says. Er, what? ‘Every Portuguese town has its own Name Day’.
Then he makes us all try again. And do you know, that not one of us British, French, or Danish passengers knows the name day for every single town in Portugal? And so nobody gets it right (May 16th, in case you’re wondering). Consequently, we don’t have lunch on the island, because there isn’t time.
But we do get to putter along looking at the birds, with the sun shining down, and the sea and sky a pulsing azure. We get to sip strong, dark coffee and ice-cold beer on one island, and watch the Atlantic surf pound, on another. And so, despite Carlos, and because of Carlos, in equal measure, we have a great day.
The Intrepids at Christmas
The other French and English people at the campsite all have ten to fifteen years on us, and can out-walk, out-run, out-drink, and pretty much out-everything me. I call them the Intrepids, because the label that I’ve heard – the ‘grey vagrants’ – does not do them justice.
For instance, Terry and June have been everywhere, usually back-packing from hostel to hostel, age or infirmity no object. You name a place and they have a funny story, or a useful piece of advice about how to navigate the area. They are not show-offs, they are excited about the possibilities in front of us and give Steve and I loads of encouragement.
They take me for a ‘short’ walk up to the lookout on the nearest hill. They point out where wild boar had been (Terry shows me the holes they’ve dug) and where eagles usually swoop (Terry points to an empty sky). No vultures either. Or lizards. And the beautiful Portuguese buttercups that carpet the fields and olive groves, bright flowers clustered on tall stems, swaying like cowslips? They will bloom just after we leave. Their disappointment is palpable and touching.
Terry once had hiccups for three weeks. It got on June’s nerves and spoilt her sleep. I’m with June there – six hours is about my maximum for compassion – just ask Steve. Terry had to take special medication to slowly release the diaphragm (which gets stuck, apparently). Years later, he was with a friend in Russia, and the hiccups started up again. The guy gave him vodka, which stopped it immediately. Now, whenever he gets them, he takes a slug of gin straight away and that does the trick. Handy to know, I thought.
They tell me about the vast statue of Genghis Khan out in the Mongolian Steppe. They’ve been there, obviously. There is a lift up inside one of the horse’s legs: it is that huge. We discuss holding your breath versus snorkelling around the Great Barrier Reef.
And another handy tip – if you’re in a desert in Oz and you’ve run out of water, stick a tree ant on your tongue until it stings you. Your mouth will then fill with saliva and your thirst will vanish.
‘You didn’t try that, did you Terry?’
‘Course I did.’
June has a photo of her hugging a koala bear. It was lovely’, she says. Did Terry hug one too?
‘Nah, I got a wombat. Always a wombat.’ His smile of satisfaction appears to explain it all.
When we get back to base-camp – sorry, the campsite – Brenda is cutting up beer cans. Hans is there, and he sings my name over and over as I approach. I am clueless how to respond to this, so I focus on Brenda. The cans are going to be used to decorate one of the carob trees in the middle of the site. Very inventive, and eco-friendly, I think.
However, Brenda tells me that the tradition started a few years ago after a particularly good evening when they all became legless. They can’t even remember who put the empties into the tree, but they looked so pretty that they’ve been boozing themselves silly in the lead up to Christmas every year since.
To their credit, the cans are now cut into spirals and made into lanterns, and their bottoms are hung sideways, as ‘baubles’. I can’t pass up the opportunity, so I dash back to the van and make strings of hanging flower shapes out of yoghurt pots. They are crap, but Brenda is delighted. I appear to have nailed the ‘tone’ of the tree.
Later, I head off to the charity bookshop in nearby Estoi. I want to talk to the young woman who runs it about the local orphanage she mentioned the last time we were there. When I return, I have a sizeable pile of books under my arm. Hans is singing my name again. I still don’t know what to say, so Brenda rescues me.
‘Got anything good?’
‘Yeah, not bad: a couple of ‘gripping’s and a nearly-but-not-quite Booker.’
She sees that my hands are covered in black marks.
‘Anything else happen?’ she asks.
‘Well, the girl wasn’t there, and the lady who was, didn’t speak English. And I had no small change so I’ve donated a fortune for these books. And then I ran out of petrol, and the car key got stuck in the petrol cap. So a policewoman found a farmer with some pliers to get it out, and then I got lost on the way back.’
Brenda raises one eyebrow and says, ‘You can’t really be let out on yer own, can yer?’
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