We left Sacramento a week ago. That seems impossible. How can so much happen in so short a time? Back-tracking to when we arrived here in Sao Martinho on the bus. After we got off the bus Joe requested an Uber on his phone. The closest driver willing to get us was 15 minutes back in the town we’d just left, Caldas de Reinha. We waited and watched as he tried every route he could to avoid paying a toll fee. 15 minutes turned to 20. Once he arrived we realized he was pretty old. He looked like he regretted accepting our request, but he watched as we loaded up our bags. Then he followed the directions on his Uber app… for the most part. All went well until he came to a fork in the road. He chose the wrong fork. He turned down a very steep pedestrian street that started with a couple of steps. This, of course, bottomed out the car. It also resulted in two local old-timers cussing him out. He didn’t have a choice at that point. He couldn’t exactly back up, so he kept going… the wrong way.
Our nephew and niece, Tom and Cecile, arrived Sunday night in time to see the bay before it got dark. They’d just walked a five-day portion of Camino de Santiago Compostella. I wasn’t sure if they’d want to do any walking, but they were game, so we walked to the other side of the bay to the chapel. When we stopped on the way back for a snack the waiter was frantic. He told us, “No food, no power, you’ll have to wait.” We decided to try a different café, and another, and another. Finally a young waiter said, “there’s no power in Portugal.” That seemed a bit melodramatic, especially when he included Spain and France. Turns out while we were happily communing with nature, the entire Iberian Peninsula lost power—Portugal, Spain, and parts of France. He proposed that it was a cyberattack. We didn’t have power at our place and we hadn’t bought enough groceries. Cecile suggested we see if any restaurants had gas stoves or grills. Turns out she was right! We had an excellent dinner at an Indian restaurant with three little candles for ambiance.
In case you’re curious, the power outage has various theories. The one that makes the most sense to me is the oscillating power lines in Spain. Apparently if there’s a dramatic change in temperature it can cause the high voltage lines to quiver or vibrate. This can create the phenomena of oscillation. Once oscillation starts, it’s hard to stop and it often accelerates. So yeah, that is the leading reason.
The next morning we lost water pressure here at our place. Fortunately, I’d taken a shower, and Cecile had already done laundry. We headed off to Obidos Castle for the day while they fixed our water issue. Obidos is a must for anyone visiting the Silver Coast. The ancient castle walls enclose a quant village of shops and restaurants. The best part is the fully intact wall-walk all the way around. Warning—it has a wall on one side and a shear drop on the other side. It also has random idiots who think they should pose like they’re falling off. Otherwise, the views are stunning.
At one point the walkway is so steep they have placed stones to act as steps on one side of the slope. A lady behind us said, “Look! A wheelchair ramp!” That cracked me up.
When we’d finally shopped and eaten to our hearts content, we got an Uber to go back. Joe got in the front, Tommy got in on one side and I sat in the middle. Apparently, the driver didn’t see Cecile getting in next to me. He started driving off. She was only halfway in! He suddenly had two women shouting at him with Cecile aborting her entry plan and giving him a piece of her mind in French. He, of course, was apologetic. I honestly don’t think he understood the seriousness of his mistake until he heard us talking about her hip hurting from her gymnastic move to keep from being run over.
It's started raining, so we got groceries for dinner at home. Sauteed chicken and veggies. We stayed up late playing a French card game. That was fun.
The third day (the 30th) we got another Uber, a safer one (though the guy was texting a couple of times), to Nazare. We hiked up to Sitio to have hamburgers at a street-food shack. They make Belgium-style fries that are sooo good. We have a confession to make… they serve their fries with mayonnaise and we love it. Sitio has stunning views of the coastline.
They also have the legend from the middle-ages of an important dude who was hunting a deer and, in the fog, he didn’t realize his prey had leaped off a cliff. His horse dug in its heels and saved his master’s life. Unfortunately, the loyal beast didn’t get the credit because it was attributed to a nearby statue of Holy Lady of Nazareth (sculpted by Saint Joseph, carted around until it ended up in Spain in the 4th century, rescued and brought to this fishing village in the 7th century). It was such a big deal to the guy that he built a shrine to it… the statue, not the horse. Intro the surfing culture—with the most recent record wave to ride being 101ft. The giant statue near the lighthouse embodies all of these legends. In my humble opinion, it’s still missing the heroic horse.
We finally trotted down the cliff trail trying to beat the incoming storm. We climbed into the uber amidst raindrops. The hail and rain was unwelcome because we had a grocery store stop planned. While we were shopping we could hear the racket of the hail, so we sat in the café and stared eagerly out the windows for a break in the storm. That kinda worked. We missed the hail but were wet by the time we got home.
That night we had reservations at the Italian restaurant for my birthday. This morning we safely sent Tom and Cecile on their way to Lisbon. Now we’re at a local café waiting for our laundry to dry at the nearby laundromat. This may or may not involve a glass of wine and a beer.
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