Portugal, the Happy Heartbreaker
Sarah says:
I want to say something about Portugal and I think it’s important to be as truthful as possible. However, it will be very difficult for me to seperate the truth from, frankly, one of the only good things that happened to us in Portugal: spending two weeks with our good friends Patti & Leslie. Now how can I keep what I feel I need to document for our diary from reflecting negatively upon how happy we were to see our friends after 6 long months….hmmm, very tricky territory but I must proceed. Wish me luck.
To be absolutely fair and give due attention to the happy things, let’s start there. Davd and I were ecstatic when P&L took us up on our offer to meet them in any world destination of their choosing and we’d been looking forward to seeing them pretty much since the cold and rainy day we said goodbye in early January. PORT-TYU-GAAL (imagine me pronouncing it like that, like I like to do) was the country of choice and July would be the month. None of us had ever been to Portugal so why not? Seemed a fine choice: the country is small enough to easily travel around in two weeks and nothing would be so culturally overwhelming as to distract from what would be our long overdue catching up, yet all four of us would have a new experience and we’d experience it all together.
And experience it we did:
We did the big city thing in Lisbon where Patti introduced me to this really great invention called Vino Verde, a wine so light and refreshing that it almost seems magic and before you know it, six bottles have been downed. I loved Vino Verde for exactly one night but by the next day I disliked it and I think I will maybe dislike it forever.
We stuck out the gale force winds in the beach town of Nazare where I think the highlight was beer and cockles at the locals’ beachside hole-in-the-wall.
There was the day trip to Fatima to see the place of pilgrimage and plenty of Jesus and Mary souvenir shopping (please see David’s full report).
I think we all agreed that Porto was very charming and cute and we all liked it much better than Lisbon, though despite going ahead and getting a little drunk in the afternoon, I discoverd that maybe I also don’t like port as much as I thought. There is definitely a reason one drinks it after a large meal and in small quantities :0
Now Evora - the surprise hit!. And it comes with combined lowlight and highlight. It was in a small local bistro in this charming medieval walled city that Leslie found a fully intact chicken foot on her plate, bloated from wine sauce. This traumatic dining experience was a lowlight until we established the three finger chicken foot sign which was quickly adopted to suit any occasion amongst the group, be it a gesture of endearment, sympathy, empathy or a laughter-enducing effort to cheer up the travel-weary.
And, finally, ahhhh, the Algarve and its beach wonders. P&L introduced us to a very sweet little off-the-beaten-track beach town called Salima where we enjoyed all the sun and warmth that almost everyone we know would kill for right about now. It was from Salima that we explored the Portugese end of the world where, ironically, after discovering the new world Christopher Columbus managed a rather embarassing ship wreck. It’s a bit like driving from Moscow to London and putting a dent in your car while backing into your own garage.
A side note at this juncture: the done way to acquire accomodation in Salima is to show up with none and present yourself to the local geriatric community milling about the town centre who will try to rent you a room in their house. Most of their English is limited to “room sleep”, as was the case with the little man we followed to his backyard self-contained apartment overlooking the beach. After agreeing upon the unbelievable bargain price of 35 euros for a complete, fully furnished apartment and terrace, Joaquim and his wife Silvina set about to show and explain every square inch of our temporary home to us. They didn’t appear to see their complete lack of English and our complete lack of Portugese as a communication problem and, funny enough, it actually wasn’t. As any good grandmother would be, Silvina was quite obsessed with showing us where the tea towels were kept and, apparently dissatisfied with the state of the tattered Santa Claus themed towel, rushed down to their own kitchen to replace it. Somehow, we proceeded to have lengthy conversations with them every day for the next four days that basically involved them kind of rambling on a bit like I’m sure they do with their own grandchildren and us doing a lot of smiling back as I hope their grandchildren do as well.
So, those were the happy parts and I know what you’re thinking, it truly sounds great. So what’s the problem? Well, the fact is, in between all these happy moments, Portugal broke our hearts, broke our bank accounts and almost broke our spirit completely. From the moment we set foot on Portugese soil we encountered a back-logged deluge of bad backpacker karma and didn’t seem to ever be able to catch a break.
First there was the theft of not one but two of David’s cameras. Not only an assult on our bank accounts on a grand scale that we’re not really in a position to absorb under present circumstances, these people stole David’s art form, his mode of expression and his way of producing what are, by far, our most valuable souvenirs. They felt like very personal attacks, forceful and intrusive and when it happened twice in two weeks, it really threw me for a loop.
As if this weren’t enough, there was the issue with our rental car. We agreed that splitting the cost of a rental car would be the best, most convenient and stress-free mode of transport for our grand Portugese exploration. Since cars don’t really drive themselves, though, someone was going to have to be the driver and since David had the most experience driving around Europe, fairly enough, I suppose, he was the chosen one. However, I just didn’t have a very good feeling about the rental car in general, much less David being the driver. The black cloud hanging over us was almost palpabe to me and, though I’ve rented many many cars and nothing bad ever happens, I just had this very strong feeling that given our recent string of terrible luck, something very stressful was going to happen. And then David backed the car into a guy on his scooter. Neither the guy nor his scooter were hurt but the three of is sitting in the car watching the conversation go down across the street could tell by the guy’s “hey man, don’t worry about my scooter…take a look at your car!” slap on David’s back, that there was a mark. It actually wasn’t that bad, as fender-scooter benders go, but the rental car company noticed and let’s just say thank goodness we took out the extra insurance. So hopefully, after the impending back-and-forth paperwork process, David will get his $400 damage charge back.
I believe that this series of events occured to us because we had the nerve to take a temporary hiatus from our status as backpackers. We found it all too easy and familiar with our friends from home, the friends we spend most weekends with, to hop right back into our normal lifestyle and spending style. We forgot our roots, neglected our established routines and rythems, turned our backs on our packs; we may as well have been rolling suitcases. So, there’s been a bit of a painful lesson learned. We’ve learned that you can backpack or you can vacation but you can’t do both at the same time. Without sounding too melodramatic, there are basic survival techniques that David and I have spent the last 6 months putting into place that aren’t really relevant to a two week vacation and us letting our guard down and thinking we were on vacation from our vacation cost us in a big way. One fundamental difference as a vacationer is that, so long as you don’t lose your passport, you’ll be back to the safety and comfort of your home and job before you know it. This puts the backpacker and the vacationer in two completely different emotional and mental frames of mind. So, bringing it full circle to my opening paragraph, we believe that we probably couldn’t have learned this hard traveling lesson while traveling in relative harmony with another couple, with any other couple but them.