Campo du Geres, Portugal

Thurs 17th April & Fri 18th April

Right now the whole morning process is probably my least favourite part of the day. We’re pretty far south, just north of Porto in Portugal, so we both figured we’d be in T-shirts and shorts by now. But it’s still pretty damn cold. Crawling out from under the blankets takes every ounce of will power you can muster, then it’s off to the shower blocks which are all mostly open air facilities with no heating and barely any water pressure. You strip off to nothing, then stand there shivering until the warm water finally pours out of the shower head, only to have it shut off every 15 seconds until you press the button again. I gave up shaving my legs on day one, as the hair grows back from the freezing cold by the time my razor has reached the top of my calf. I can’t stop shivering from the whole process until I’ve finished my cup of instant coffee back at the van. Watch England have a record breaking summer of heat while Europe suffers from a cold freeze and downpours.

So back to today. It was another comedy of mishaps, which we’ll probably laugh about fondly in a few months but it’s certainly not easy when you’re living through it. As I was walking to the shower block about 100 metres from our van, a number of workmen pulled into the campsite. We were the only people in the campsite, so I decided to shut the entrance to the women’s showers for a bit more privacy. OOPS – I will not be doing that again on this trip. After my shower, I decided to set my shoes outside to dry off and discovered that the door was locked. I started pounding on the door yelling, but there were no windows facing the outside so I had no idea if anyone was in the vicinity. Twenty five minutes of yelling “No saida! Ayudame!!” at the top of my lungs, Bevan finally heard me from the van and opened the door. It was a mix of broken Portugese and Spanish, which may explain why no one else came to my rescue but it was certainly not a nice start to the morning.

Already a dramatic morning and we still hadn’t resolved the tire situation. Yes, the tire was definitely flat but fortunately the campsite reception spoke English and was able to draw us a rough map to the nearest tire shop about 8km away. We made it to the shop, but the mechanic spoke no English and unfortunately our guide book had no phrase section for auto repair questions. So I called our good friend Tania, knowing her office is probably the most diverse workplace in London and one of her colleagues was bound to know Portuguese. It was soooo good to hear a familiar voice again that it immediately lifted our spirits, especially since she could help us laugh about the whole situation.

Our van is an old Royal Mail delivery van with plenty of quirks, one of which includes 4 tires at the rear of the van – two on either side. The right rear exterior tire had gone flat, but when the mechanic removed it for repairs, he found the second tire in a state that words can not describe. (See adjacent photo). Damn that Aussie b*s!&%d who sold us the van!

So we were now down two tires and shocked that we had been driving such precarious roads on a tire that was literally worn down to the steel wiring! Expecting a very hefty bill and our budget for the week to be completely blown, we sadly asked in broken Portuguese how much it would cost. “Sheenchwo” is all I heard, and figured it was around 50 euros. Not bad at all for two tires! As I reached for the 50 euro bill in my wallet, thankfully Bevan asked him to repeat it again, and the mechanic pulled out a 5 euro bill, pointing to it. We were absolutely floored! FIVE EUROS to fix two tires?? I’m starting to think Portugal is pretty wonderful after all, despite the pouring rain.

Now onto Porto for some port tasting!

Braga, Portugal

Wed 16th April

It’s been a doozy of a day and to make matters worse, our campsite is 5km from the nearest shop and we’re down to our last 2 beers.

We attempted our longest drive yet, from Segovia, Spain to Braga, Portugal. The TomTom said it’d take just over 7 hours, but 12 hours later we finally pulled into our campsite. We can’t really blame it on the GPS - just really bad luck with finding a campsite, and then further bad luck once we finally got there.

The day started earlier than I’d ever get up for work but we wanted to get on the road and crack through this 7 hour drive to have enough time to set-up camp on the other end. At one point, the TomTom even said we’d even be in by 2:30pm. Oh how wrong TomTom was indeed.

The drive into the Minho Valley of northern Portugal was stunning and the last few hours to Braga flew by as we stared out the window at the steep pastures filled with long-horned bulls and old wrinkled faces chucking their hoes into the cliffside vineyards.

Then the trouble started. We pulled into Braga around 5:30pm and discovered that this city was not built for brutes like our purple. TomTom kept leading us through tiny narrow streets where either pedestrians or seemingly parked cars darted out at us from every direction. After 20 minutes, we decided that even if there was a campsite in the centre of the city, we certainly didn’t want to find it.

So on to Gueriemas, where according to our campervan book, there was a beautiful well-kept campsite that opened on April 1st at the very tippy top of the mountain overlooking the city. Switchback after switchback we climbed a hair-raising narrow cobblestone drive until we found the car park and the front gates shut. Not a single other caravan in site. One of the guards appeared from behind the bushes after we rang the number posted to the front door and confirmed our fears – the campsite was not open yet. Fortunately he had a Portugal camping book and pointed us in the direction of a 3rd campsite. I wrote down the phone number just in case and we took off in hopes that 6:30pm wasn’t too late to find someone at reception.

By far the worst drive of the day, as TomTom chose the narrowest, bumpiest and terrifyingly steep roads, eventually claiming we’d reached our destination at 2 dirt tire tracks leading into a thick eucalyptus forest. We decided to brave it and eventually the dirt road led out into another neighbourhood where we found our saviour. A lovely man around 50-years old was standing in the street talking to a neighbour and even though he didn’t speak a word of English and we didn’t speak a word of Portuguese or French, he jumped into his car and guided us to the campsite.

After checking in at 7:30pm, we settled down for a beer to calm our frustration and listened to the rain start to pummel away on the rooftop. Just when we felt relaxed, we heard drip…drip…drip. The sunroof was leaking and quickly getting worse! There was no way to plug it with the roof being so wet so we turned the van around to change the slope of the car, which is when we noticed that the rear right tire seemed awfully low. So the fun will continue into tomorrow. This is the part of the trip that builds character, right?