Faro ‘nuff (just chillin’ around and about in Portugal)

Another red dawn; seen from the highest point in the Algarve - Serra De Monchique. We’ve been taking it slow since my return from a quick trip back to the UK for Richard’s surprise 40th (some of you must have been puzzled by my appearance on FB a couple of weeks ago).  Gareth remained in Portugal with Bess and Pwdin, enjoying the sun while I gathered with the family, catching up on hugs and celebrating another milestone. My son is 40!! Another reminder of how quickly the years roll by.

It was such a lovely occasion and well worth braving my dislike of flying for. Amazingly, the return trip Faro to Manchester was actually cheaper than what it costs me to get to Stoke-on-Trent from Swansea; and quicker too if you don’t count the three and a half hour bus ride from Manchester to Stoke that should have been just one hour (something to do with a lorry load of illegal immigrants escaping onto the M6). 

After a weekend with the whole of my brood (even William had made it over from Canada, though without Izzy, sadly) I was aglow. Meanwhile, in Faro, Gareth was free-camping and trying to deal with a problem we hadn’t foreseen - that of how to manage when your infotech malfunctions and/or you have no access to power. While we’ve been away his phone, with so much stored on it, died, and then the special charger that enables him to charge his laptop from the van battery burned out. The laptop was critical for a number of things, not least for filing his tax-return. In an information blackout he ‘patiently’ awaited my return with a new charger we ordered while I was back in Blighty. I think he was pleased to see me as well as the new charger 🤔

Although I’ve been quite critical of some free-campers in Portugal there are lots of places where it is tolerated though few are supported with water and drainage services. The huge aire at Faro, at the end of the runway (surprisingly peaceful, in fact) is in a lovely location and popular therefore with motorhomers in spite of there being no services. It’s close to the beach on Faro island, and with lovely nature walks along the estuary full of bird life, fishermen and cockle pickers. (I am proud to say that over two days I walked the perimeter of the intriguing sand-bank island. It’s sad to see, though, that its little communities, simple shanty villages, are slowly disappearing as the sea eats away at the land.)

Now, there’s nothing like free-camping to make you think about things we take for granted at home, like power and water. We are intrigued by the number of full-time motorhomers we have met and how they manage. These people come in all shapes and sizes. At Faro a young family that included a couple of teenagers were living in a converted old bus. A youngish French couple with an eight year old daughter have been living in their van for two years and travelling around VERY slowly in order to keep costs down. We’ve met single travellers of all different ages, as well as couples like ourselves using retirement to see a bit of the world, or a bit of Europe at any rate (goodness knows how Brexit will affect that!)

Everyone, except us, has solar panels. Why we thought we could manage without, we can’t say. Needing power to charge up phones, laptop, iPad, vacuum cleaner, torch, Kindle, hot tub (as if!) we needed a camp-site. Also, I wanted a good shower and decent laundry facilities. Our water tank is copious enough but when the only source of water is nearly a mile walk away, it has to be carefully rationed. Had we brought a bike or two, we could have done what other free-campers at Faro were doing each morning - heading over to the public facilities at the beach taking bottles for filling and their toilet cassettes for emptying. So many of the vans around us were huge and they all seemed to have additional transport with them, whether it was bikes, motorbikes, scooters or a small car on a trailer. For some reason it amuses me to see a fella struggling to cycle carrying his toilet cassette and a couple of 5 litre bottles of water. That might be Gareth if we do this again next year!

Anyway, from Faro we took off to a funny campsite called Mikki’s Place in Pera, near Albufeira. In the middle of nowhere a big community of motorhomers and caravanners were all tightly packed in, and it was a good place to get serviced and battened down for a period of cold, windy weather. We had our first rain there, too. Mikki is a potter and an exotic bird lover, so the place was an artistically ramshackle and quirky place full of ramshackle and quirky people. Maybe we are too - ramshackle and quirky, that is.

Next stop was by the beach at Armacao De Pera; four Euros a night in a car park including water but no power. Conserving our resources (including finances) brought on boredom. Conserving battery power meant limited use of our infotech and once I’d finished reading the book I’d bought on the plane back from UK I resorted to a crossword book for entertainment. The beach was lovely and we could have joined the other crazy Northerners sunbathing in sheltered spots were it not for the antics of Bess and Pwdin. Bess, determined to engage anyone she could in a game of throw-me-a-stick, had to be kept a close eye on, and Pwdin, little tramp that she is, scavenged, nose to the ground, around every rock, stone and other people’s belongings.

Armacao De Pera is a typical Algarvian seaside resort where the old town has been engulfed by big apartment blocks. The seafront parade is nevertheless very pleasant and it has lots of fish restaurants, cafes and bars. The aire is a good place to stop over in a motorhome (provided you have a solar panel, of course) because of its proximity to these and other essential services such as food stores. Unfortunately the aire appears to be a temporary thing as it is scheduled for another apartment block to be built on it. Such is the way of things here. 

One day we were intrigued watching motorhome after motorhome piling in to join us. We learned that the police had just moved people on from a place further along the coast, and the free-campers were having, reluctantly, to part with 4 Euros a night not to be prosecuted for illegal camping. It seems down to the whim of the police whether free-camping is tolerated or not.

We have had some really hot weather, but the wind can be chilly, and when the sun goes down, the best place to be (failing a nice warm bar or restaurant if you can afford it) is snuggled up in the van. Wine is so cheap here it brings a glow to an evening, but doesn’t do much for the brain power needed for a good game of Scrabble. We have become keenly aware of our dependence on the infotech as much for entertainment and information as to keep us from arguing! We’ve also found, annoyingly, that when we have power we often have poor data signal and when we have good data we have limited power! If Brexit enables us to do this again next year we will have to be much better set up and organised. Yeah, yeah!

So, at this moment we are parked up in Foia, a free aire with spectacular panoramic views of the Algarve. A huge fire burned through this area of forested hills last October, the charred remains of trees, stark in the sunshine. Surprisingly few homes seem to have been destroyed, though. On the top here, we are surrounded by huge communication masts, so who knows what the signals are doing to our brains, but the sun is warm and it’s very peaceful. On Sunday the west coast weather is set to change so we’ll back track to somewhere sheltered. Maybe I’ll have better signal then, and some power, so I can post this. Funny how being amongst these masts doesn’t do anything for our phones! 

Tarra for now, folks.

Portugal people

January 6th

We’ve had another lovely and interesting day. They just keep coming! This afternoon we arrived in this little Portuguese village, called Pereirio after spending the morning in lovely Mertola.

Once the early morning’s heavy mist had lifted we’d wandered around the old town’s awakening streets where in one, the trees were dressed in crochet work! Some people have been very busy, and it was a pretty, if peculiar sight. We poked about in some of the little shops but all we bought was a loaf of rather heavy, dry bread - the only sort available. 

Then we came upon something truly magical. Outside a non-descript shed was a life-size tableau of some shepherds and a camel. Taking photos led to our being invited in to the shed and we were taken aback by a beautiful presentation of the nativity story. Through a grotto we wandered past more full-size tableaux of different parts of the story until the last -  the nativity scene itself and the arrival of the Magi. The place was filled with heavenly scents and spirit affirming music. I was really moved! It turned out that the whole thing was a single-handed creation over three months since August and it was to be dismantled after Jan 6th. What a shame.

Moving off from Mertola we arrived at little Pereirio, on a plain looking out across miles and miles (sorry - kilometres and kilometres) of gentle wooded hills. The village is a sleepy little place of tiny single storey white cottages (it would be rude to call them hovels). Gareth went in to the small one-and-only bar to see what was on offer. I sat outside enjoying the sunshine with our dogs, Bessie and Pwdin. (Note to self: remember that rural villages like this tend to have lots of free-ranging dogs, un-neutered). Pwdin is on heat! 

Dogs of different shapes and sizes started appearing from every direction so I whisked a quivering Pwdin up into my lap and tried to fend off a big Dalmatian type dog and a determined little corgi thing. Bess was doing her best to fend them off, too, but being tethered to my wrist she was succeeding only in dragging me and the table around. I was calling helplessly to Gareth who was suddenly cloth-eared and deeply involved in finding out whether the smells coming from the kitchen gave any promise of our being able to purchase lunch. A picturesque trio of sun-beaten old folk perched together on a seat outside one of the hovels, sorry - cottages, had a grandstand view of my canine circus but they gazed on dispassionately.

Gareth, oblivious, returned with his tongue hanging out for the promise of chicken and chips if we came back in an hour. A little surprised to see me and the dogs in such disarray and with an expanded retinue, he quickly downed his beer and took on the job of fighting off Pwdin’s suitors. Then we made a quick, apologetic exit back to the camper, so as to put Pwdin into purdah and return for a quiet lunch. It was Gareth’s birthday after all. 

Lunch was a simple affair. Gareth was a bit disappointed that the chips we received with our fried chicken were not the chunky wedges of fried potato he’d seen being prepared to go with the bar owner’s family lunch - clearly a big affair, with salmon. So, he waded through the olives and the tough brown bread we were given instead, knowing full well that these were not complementary and we’d be charged for them as extras (that’s the way of it in Portugal we’d learned). The musical accompaniment for our lunch was the baying of dogs who’d picked up Pwdin’s scent but were (fortunately, for us) either now chained up or behind doors and fences....except the little corgi thing that wanted to get up close and personal with my leg.

A notice on the wall suggested that there was something else musical planned for that evening in the bar. We paid for our lunch and headed back to the van for a siesta and looking forward to coming back for the entertainment, the corgi thing still in tow hoping to get his little paws around our Pwdin. Back at camp a few more dogs were circling the van lasciviously. Such fun, this travelling lark!

At this point I have to say something about the camp-ground. It’s a really good motorhome aire adjacent to the village and a huge area beyond that can accommodate large numbers of vastly proportioned or more modest motorhomes. It was a great place to park up, especially for people with dogs (ahem!). The sad thing to note about this aire and it’s huge extension is that it was at some point a football field - it still has its goal posts. I am intrigued. This whole facility suggests that it was a community investment not too long ago, but one which has not been maintained and as regards the football field, an obvious white elephant. We’d read the tourist information board which explained that the village had been some sort of mining community at one time but that now the age profile of the villagers is significantly past working age. Indeed, we’d seen just two little children, one teenager and no school. So why, I wonder, did anyone (it was probably some bright spark in an EU community regeneration office) think it worthwhile to give a football field to a village populated by octogenarians?

Nor can I see how this aire is doing much for the local economy, especially given the absence of every tourist other than ourselves, anywhere in the village that day or that evening.

Once the sun went down the temperature dropped significantly, but we dressed up warm and headed back to the little bar. Villagers slowly drifted in and greeted each other as they sat down. They certainly reflected the demographic described on that tourist information board. No one took any notice of us, even the old man who was determinedly ignoring everyone, fixed as he was on the TV above our heads. Football was on. Maybe his grumpy demeanour was because his neighbours weren’t interested in getting together to form a team and as a result their football field was becoming a wasteland covered in motorhomes.

We’d just about given up on anything happening when suddenly a small fleet of vans turned up and a horde of people arrived. With guitar and mouth organ accompaniment, they formed a choir, pressed together along the small bar, singing two songs quite tunefully and enthusiastically before all then filing out again with a gift from the patroness - a basket containing wines and cheeses (we’d not been offered any of THAT at lunch time).

Curiosity prompted Gareth to ask a couple of women he’d heard say something in English, what it was they had been singing about. Apparently the song was one of gratitude for the citrus trees that had come from China. Uh, huh.....

Now there’s another thing to puzzle us. Ok, this was Epiphany and in parts of Portugal it’s customary for groups of carol singers to go from place to place on Three Kings night and be rewarded with a gift. It’s called (translated) ‘January singing’. Makes sense. What I can’t understand is the thankfulness for citrus trees when we haven’t seen any since Spain and the area (we were informed by the tourist info board) is a pear growing area. Perhaps that old football-watching guy’s total disinterest in the event was because he’s a pear grower and no one has thanked him it.

One other thing to mention is the appearance on doorsteps of plastic-bottled water. As the bottles aren’t all new ones, and not necessarily full, our theory is that in these remote communities with seemingly so little in the way of utilities, this may be how people warm up water for washing with.  Do they leave the water to absorb the strong sunshine ready to fill a basin or a small bath for a wash at bedtime? Or do they provide some reflective quality at night, preventing collisions and stumbles over doorsteps? Who knows? This is Portugal, so the explanation will probably confuse us.

Morning breaks

Mornings

January 3

I love lazy mornings. I love the bed-warm feeling of slowly waking with the dawn, gentle light filtering around the edges of the window coverings. I love being able to sit with my morning cuppa, my mind still dreamy and free-floating. When my energy and the location allows, I enjoy stepping out onto a beach into a summer sunrise with birdsong as my accompaniment. In winter, I love gazing at a blue-frosty garden from within my snug, or at rain giving the world its shower.

I must confess that this luxurious languor is now fairly typical of my lifestyle, retirement having given me the pleasure of there being no alarm-clock to intrude on my peace. Even the word ‘alarm’ has the effect of raising blood pressure. I like my blood to rise slowly towards any need for activity.

Some of my fondest memories of morning are of being curled up on the sofa with cats, a cuppa and my youngest son. He’s also a morning person, and while the others still dreamed under their covers, he and I could have our special time, talking about this, that and whatever.

This morning I woke to dawn along an Atlantic horizon. We are camped on a beach park, less than 100 yards from the tide line. Cuddled up in my duvet, I waited for the inevitable Spanish sun to appear through the sea fog. Snug inside our camper I watched some fishermen arrive and with the tools of their trade disappear along the beach and into the mist. Gareth slumbered on, as did the dogs. Gareth is NOT a morning person and doesn’t function until he’s had his jolt of coffee. The dogs don’t stir until he does, either. They know that I like my quiet morning time and that unless the sun is up, hot and strong, I’m unlikely to take on the challenge of herding these two young lively spaniels anywhere.

January 4

Dawn this morning was a red blaze across the fields around us. The old man whose vegetable plot is just below the aire we’re parked up in, is already up and in his ramshackle shelter tending a little brazier. He greets a friend who’s come to join him for a smoke and they chatter cheerfully. It was a noisy night, though; the Spanish keeping their strange hours even in this inland, less than affluent town.

The town is Valverde del Camino whose main tourist attraction (according to the Aires book) is a museum dedicated to thanking the British who first settled the town and brought investment through mining. Contrary to the information given about opening times the museum was shut, so I didn’t learn a great deal more. A little wander into the town revealed its credentials in leather work. We saw some beautiful boots and shoes displayed in shop windows, and as I’m a shoe-freak, Gareth was relieved that the shops weren’t actually open (at least, he was keen to insist that they weren’t - I’d have been bankrupt years ago if he didn’t curb my indulgences).

We’d also taken a walk along what may have once been a railway and could have continued walking for miles and miles into fabulous rolling, thinly wooded countryside. We were intrigued by the plastic bottles hanging in the trees lining the track. There was a little glade, too, planted with an assortment of different trees, also with hanging plastic bottles, and a makeshift sign that when we Googled it, translated as “Respect the dead and the source”. There was a little seat and we wondered whether it is some sort of private cemetery.

Today’s lovely red dawn opened up another beautiful blue morning and we continued driving up into the Sierra Morena, Spain’s longest line of hills and separating Andalucia from what our guide book describes as the bleak plains of Extremadura to the north. This hilly area is popular for hiking and trail-biking and its main industry is production of the famous ‘jamon’ (cured ham), haunches of which we’d seen in abundance being sold for Christmas. The black pigs feed on acorns and the woodland is clearly pig paradise. We saw very few pigs, however, and Gareth surmised that they’d all met their unhappy end for Christmas feasting. 

Rosal De la Frontera is a neat, newish town that signals the end of Spain and entry into Portugal. We filled up with fuel, expecting a price hike as we had encountered on Italy’s border last June, but there was no such nonsense. The Spanish we’d encountered in Andalucia were all kind, quietly friendly, fair and un-avaricious.

Entering Portugal we were immediately confused by a scruffy notice of ‘electronic toll’ and nothing else to indicate whether, how, and where we needed to pay. The state of the road indicated to us that it wasn’t a highway or the sort of road maintained by tolls, so we had Ms Sat Nav take us off through the quiet, sunny, deserted meadows, sugar-dusted for miles with daisies and sprinkled with ‘buttercups’ (or something yellow and similar). Trees like the sponge train-set ones dotted the countryside too. Our place for the night is Mertola. This part of Portugal is apparently poorer than the rest but the poverty isn’t obvious given the pretty white and blue homes we passed by. On a few occasions we were delighted by the friendly wave we received from old men as we drove through sleepy little villages. There is a definite, different feel from the Spain we’ve just left, but hard to put a finger on what the difference is.

Mertola is a delightful old walled Moorish castle town above a river gorge. We parked up on the little riverside quay directly beneath the towering cliff and monumental town wall topping it. We’re hoping that the custom of deterring intruders by pouring boiling oil and hurling boulders from the towers is no longer current nor has been replaced by alternative missiles such as beer bottles. A walk around the castle gave me vertigo, a walk through the streets found a barber for Gareth and then we spent the evening on-line trying to get our heads around the Portuguese system of toll roads. After a lot of frustration we are none the wiser, but Portugal promises lots to interest, surprise and confuse us.

January 5

That was the quietest night we’ve had! Totally undisturbed except for some vertigo-related dreams, I woke at one point totally unsure of where we were and there wasn’t a sound except the snores of our dogs and Gareth’s sleepy breathing. There were no jingling sounds from the boats by the river bank, no cars passing in the night over the bridge high across the gorge, no barking from the dogs in the little smallholdings opposite or goat bells tinkling along the narrow rocky pathways. There was no late night laughter from the bars that abut the walls above us, no mopeds or cars rattling along the cobbled streets - not a sound! Everything - animal human and mineral slept through the night. The suggestion of birdsong and a far off cockerel signalled that it is actually morning here below this citadel, but when I opened the blinds the day is a shroud of thick mist and as yet there are no sounds of any activity. It’s cold outside, too, so I am up and writing this, hoping to post it today with a few more photos. Shortly I will seek out the bakery nearby where yesterday evening I saw a baker preparing the dough; we’ve fallen nicely into the continental morning ritual of hopping out to get our morning bread (“Our father....” and all that 😋)

That’s it for now folks. I’ll tell you about the treat that followed next time.