The critters are always of interest to us. As I’ve said before, the area behind our house is open land. There’s a little farm and a big chained-up dog. I struggle with that poor dog being chained up all the time, but there’s nothing anyone can do because its healthy and barks playfully when the farmer arrives. There’s also a little terrier who stays faithfully by the big dog. A really fat and hairy horse lives there and occasionally two white horses show up.
I’ve seen a goat/sheep herder go by in the distance a few times. Joe and I ran across him with his herd the other day when we followed a dirt road (just to see where it would take us). The front-runners were goats and the sheep lagged behind. The border collie kept them all in line while the herder occasionally called out some mysterious order.
Seagulls are pretty weird here… in California they sound a certain way. To me it’s just the way a seagull sounds. Nazare seagulls sound like a cat in heat, or a baby crying, or a seal barking, pretty much anything other than a seagull.
I love the pets who wait faithfully for their masters to come out of the bar or store. In this case an old guy pointed to this dog and said “Stay.” And as you can see she did. All the men who came in and out said hello and patted her on the head, but she was unmoved. She was waiting for Poppa to return and you could tell she knew there was no back door—he wasn’t going to get past her.
Cats are a big deal here in Nazare. They have these random little houses built for them. We thought it was pretty silly, but we’ve seen the cats go inside, so I guess it has a purpose.
A gorgeous blue-eyed cat showed up on our patio the other day. It lurked around amongst the potted plants for most of the morning.
Apparently, there’s a horse ranch up on the cliff city, Sitio. I loved the photo I took of the horsemen going through the old town square past the souvenir shops, but here’s one of them next to the overlook of the lower city of Nazare.
There’re a few pets we see consistently around town. One medium-sized dog is the politest beggar I’ve ever seen. Last night we stopped at a little pizza place to get a beer and a glass of wine at one of their sidewalk tables. A car pulled up and a couple got out with an enormous dog that looked like a black bear. They longingly eyed our table and moved on. Five minutes later they returned to obviously wish an outdoor table was available. We got the hint and moved indoors. They were so grateful!
This guy is one of my favorites; he always carries a deflated ball in his mouth. It’s like a security blanket or something. I first saw him way up on the cliff by the fort lookout. His owner is this pretty lady who sounds French. She never has him on a leash because he never leaves her. The other day I saw a dog who looked remarkably like him staring a t a shop door, and then I saw the ball about fifteen feet away. My curiosity was piqued. I wondered if he’d notice if I touched his ball. He didn’t give me the chance.
We wore ourselves out today. I thought maybe we ought to try finding the big grocery store way up the hill. I figured if went up to Sitio to have lunch at our favorite Italian restaurant and then went sideways, we’d kill two birds with one stone. The restaurant was closed. We went somewhere else and shared some Belgium fries—delish. Then headed sideways across the crest of the mountain. Long story short, it was a super long day of walking (4-5 hours) and the grocery store was a disappointment. I’m trying to come to terms with a big change since our last time here. I could always find Skippy peanut butter. Now I can’t… anywhere. This borders on a tragedy, especially because I had one in my suitcase and took it out thinking I wouldn’t need it here.
The funicular (big sideways elevator), that takes tourists up and down the mountain, still isn’t running. We got into an interesting local topic of debate here. It turns out that the funicular works fine. The problem is the cliff it comes up under, and through, is becoming unstable. The logical solution is to reinforce the cliff around the top where it’s in danger of falling down onto the city below.
There’s an overhang another fifty yards away which is also deemed unsafe. It has a lookout shelf on it that tourists line up on to get that perfect iconic photo. The protesters showed up with their little “save the cliff” and “don’t change history” signs, etc.. I think if the cliff plummets down into people’s homes, and takes the funicular full of people with it, that would certainly be a historical moment—not a good one. They succeeded in stopping the reinforcements to the lookout, but the funicular cliff is getting fixed. It was quite the political upheaval here in Nazare.
Almost every day, we walk past a barbershop or two. Yesterday, Joe finally decided it was time for a haircut. We found a shop with bicycles hanging in the windows and a bunch of young Brazilian barbers. Marco seated Joe in his chair and asked his name. When Joe told him, they all looked at each other with big smiles and repeated it several times. My name, Heidi, usually gets that reaction, but not Joe. I finally caught what they were saying in Portuguese, “Like Joe Biden.” I got a good laugh out of that one.
It was laundry day again today. This time we put it on the proper setting for 60 minutes and we went across the street to the beach gym for an hour. Having learned our lesson, we loaded up the wet clothes and went in search of a nearby laundromat to get ‘em good and dry. Nearby turned out to be wishful thinking. We wandered in circles—covering more ground than necessary. When we finally found one, we lucked out and had a local using the drier also. I subtly spied on her and when she asked if I needed help, I said no… I’d watched her every move. ;)
No comments:
Post a Comment