Bumps - And Some in the Night

 Our drive today was both gorgeous and atrocious. The road wound its way through olive groves, cork fields, eucalyptus forests, and undulating hills bright green after the recent downpours. There were giant storks nesting atop power poles, a moped rider laden with twigs for his fireplace, even a butterfly who flew in front of our windshield and waved hello with his yellow wings.

View from our window

The atrocious part? The actual road itself reminded me of some of the Australian country roads of my youth. There were cracks, holes, and undulations that mirrored the bright green hills only with extra unexpected bumps in them. There has obviously been a lot of work on the Portuguese road system over the years but not on our route today. Rocks dotted the road where they’d fallen from the cliffs along the edge and we would suddenly come upon a section of untreated surface that had no warning whatsoever.

We made it to a very, shall we say, rustic campsite in the hills behind Portomão where the temperature is about 25 degrees and we’ve been able to sit outside in short sleeves for the first time in a while.We’re hoping we’ll be safe here as we had a rather disturbing experience last night at the beach.

Enjoying bread and cheese in the sun

Despite the area we were in being legal to camp we’d heard of people being moved on if they’d parked just a few hundred meters away so were alert to the idea of police patrolling the area. At 3AM someone was tapping on the van and shouting something in Portuguese. Immediately we were awake and presumed it was the police telling us to move. Graham turned on the lights, opened the blinds and peered out but couldn’t see who was there.

He decided it would be best for him to get out of the van and investigate (against my instructions that he was NOT to go outside and investigate). I heard voices and saw a strange man’s face at the window who looked at me and said ‘hi’- he was clearly not a policeman. Graham returned to the van unmurdered and all in one piece but not much sleep was had after that. Speaking to other van people this morning they think the guy was on drugs and the site is normally very safe. Graham has agreed he will not leave the van if someone bangs on the van and shouts at us again.