Feb 4th
Portugal is going to miss us; the Brits, that is, when we Brexit. We’re in Alvor, west of Portimao, another town on the Algarve coast with a lovely long sandy beach. The town is geared to providing for tourists with such a proliferation of bars and restaurants that the hungry motorhomer is spoilt for choice. Shops selling Portuguese pottery and goods made from cork are on every street, too. Below the town, next to the shore, the motorhomes gather in huge numbers, like an army laying siege (except the motorhomers hardly look very threatening and the town actually wants them ransacking their shops; provided they pay of course).
So places like Alvor will really feel the loss of trade if the freedom of Brits to spend their retirement in Portugal is curbed in any way. All talk of ‘three months’ is not going down well with people we talk to who spend so much of the year here. One guy, Martin, only goes back to Britain once a year for just 2 weeks to get his van MOT’d.
We heard on a Portuguese radio channel that regardless of the outcome of Brexit, British travellers will be welcome in Portugal and that Portugal will adapt its own laws to accommodate us. They must be pretty worried, tourism being so essential to their economy.
We’ve had a week of not-so-nice weather that started week last Saturday night while we were sleeping atop the mountain at Foia. We had learned how important a water-shed Serra De Monchique is for the region, with moisture from the Atlantic clouding in on the north side and dumping itself on the rocky slopes to provide water for the more fertile valleys on the south side. And we found out how that works as the winds got up in the night, howling around the communication masts and threatening to blow the van over; or so it felt. Gareth assured me it sounded worse than it was, but his own nervousness was infectious! The cloud was so thick we couldn’t see more than a couple of feet in front of us, but Gareth was determined to get us down off the top before things got any worse. I couldn’t imagine what ‘worse’ might mean. We secured everything, managed to keep the dogs from blowing away, and gingerly set off into the cloud to head down the road, me staring intently at what I could see of the road edge and drop off! As the road wound down to the south side we came out of the cloud and sighed with relief as we entered the town of Monchique at 7 am. The local Intermarche was as good a stopping point as any, and the little cafe there was just opening up. A bonus was an attached laundromat so we were able to do a couple of loads of laundry ( I do love freshly laundered bed sheets).
A biting wind reminding us that it is January, even if we are in Portugal, and with a not-too-promising weather forecast we stocked up on provisions and headed for another, more sheltered little aire in a village called Alferce. All around was the aftermath of the forest fires of last summer; forest floors greening under the blackened skeletons of trees and along the road, melted signs and views of hillsides laid waste. Nature is so resilient, though. Many of those ghastly black trunks were showing green sprouts on their branches. We wondered whether the communities are in mourning, however, given the quietness of Alferce and it’s sister villages. Certainly some of the homes there had been in the path of fire as it tore through. One at the end of a street had been completely destroyed while its neighbour’s had escaped except for a melted lean-to. Another, beautifully situated with views out across the hillsides, sat collapsed in on itself accompanied by a burnt out excavator. We saw a pile of charred honey frames, another sad sign of casualty, all the more poignant for what we learned about the use of honey locally. In Alferce there are two small shops and one that seems to specialise in the local ‘drop’. As far as I can tell, it is a liqueur from honey - mead of some sort, but as no one was in attendance in any of those establishments, we didn’t find out.
There was little to do in Alferce, it seemed, unless it’s partaking of that mead stuff. The bus shelter appeared to be the daytime meeting place of those ‘last of the summer wine’ sorts. Each had their own seat pad - a piece of cardboard. Outside one of the cottages a little old woman in a pinny stood with her back against the wall and a young man, her grandson maybe, stood alongside, both of them staring silently into the street, like statues.
Portugal continues to puzzle us. The petite and bijou aire we stopped in is neatly paved, landscaped and with free water and drainage service. There is a bbq area and dishwashing facility as well as a public toilet. Quite an investment for a couple of motorhomes. Adjacent is something we’ve started seeing in a few of these rural places - a large communal clothes washing area, with sinks, rubbing stones and numerous washing lines. It was clear from the laundry hanging out there that it is the local community using the facility, not the little group of transient motorhomers (how many motorhomers wear embroidered pinafores and crocheted bed jackets?) A lot of effort seems to have gone in to making an aire in a community that still lives without the modern conveniences that so many of us take for granted. We’ve seen motorhomers with their own washing machines, for heaven’s sake! Mind you, the tiny homes around us there, in Povo da Baixo, probably don’t have room for washing machines anyway. (Btw, Google translated ‘Povo da Baixo’ as ‘the low people’! We guessed that really it refers to the lower part of Alferce, but during our stay we enjoyed thinking of ourselves as ‘the low people’).
After a couple of days waiting out the rather cold, wet and windy weather we decided to make a move in order to recharge everything. We found a small, private, fully serviced aire at Caldas de Monchique that was a delightful little haven in the midst of what remains of the forest. Most of the people there were French, including a ‘lady in a van’ who has taken on the role of assistant to the owner every season. She told me how she and he had fought off the fire last summer and how Monchique itself had been evacuated. She told me how frightened she’d been and how she’d had to subsist for a month on whatever stores she had in her van. She didn’t want to leave the aire in case the police stopped her coming back. There were road blocks preventing people returning for a month after the fire.
I know that forest fires occur naturally and serve a cleansing purpose; like getting rid of killer caterpillars for instance and giving other species a chance to thrive for a bit. But the lack of birdsong gave the place an eerie feel. Apparently 49 homes were destroyed altogether. I don’t know anything about the wildlife casualties, apart from the bees, but we met a Portuguese man who chatted away at us, and as best we could guess, he was telling us about the fire and how it had now put paid to hunting.
Portugal is in a bit of trouble for a number of reasons, it seems. Water-saving projects are being implemented on the mountain as the area faces hotter summers, stronger winds, forest fires and drought on account of global warming. The trees themselves have been a source of controversy since the introduction of Eucalyptus from Australia, apparently to help prevent soil erosion and to create paper milling industries. Inevitably this has impacted on the indigenous cork trees which have provided income for both large and cottage industries. While the Eucalyptus is supposed to be fire resilient, in a really hot fire its oil burns fiercely and is harder to extinguish.
So now, facing the challenge of global warming, a declining paper industry as well as a declining need for corks by the wine industry, poor Portugal is in a bit of a bind. No wonder they’re worried about Brexit.
Anyway, after a couple of days in the hills, we headed down to Alvor on the coast planning to spend a few days stocking up and waiting out the weather before heading west and slowly making our way north to be home in time for Reuben’s sixth birthday in March. The winds have now dropped and the sun is shining warm again, so we’re heading west tomorrow.
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