The rain predicted by the BBC Weather app arrived twelve hours early in the middle of last night. Sitting in a beach parking during a downpour is nobody's idea of fun, so we decided to head for Olhâo a day earlier than planned.
It tipped down for more or less the whole journey. A shame, as I suspect that on a sunny day the road we took through Algarve's hilly interior to Lagos would have been an attractive drive without the fog .We stopped at the Pingo Doce hypermarket on the outskirts of Lagos to stock-up on some essential items that we had forgotten - like Cous Cous and golden raisins. The latter product proved very tricky to locate; just as we were about to admit defeat I happened across them skulking behind a bag of sultanas in the health food section. This minor triumph provoked an unexpected sense of elation for reasons I can't really explain. Travel does funny things to your head sometimes.
We liked Olhâo the last time we visited it and promised ourselves we would return. In many respects it's a Portuguese version of Isla Cristina, a working tuna fishing port, but perhaps the town itself is older. The narrow whitewashed streets behind the waterfront look Arabic in origin. The place has real character and a lively vibe.
As for the campsite, it is one of the more idiosyncratic places we have stayed. Situated on the edge of the Parque Natural da Ria Formosa it is has nice coastal walks nearby and is only a short bike ride from town. It is a bit weird though. The site is enormous, yet pitches are small with hundreds of static caravans and long stay over-winterers from the north all crammed together.
Tourists like us have to squeeze in where we can. You feel like an interloper somehow. The fact that the place is owned and operated by a Portuguese trade union for the banking industry just adds to how odd it all feels. Anyway it is just for a couple of days, but after the space and tranquillity of Carrapateira beach it is difficult to escape the sense that you have deliberately swapped the sublime for the ridiculous and for no good reason.
In fact the contrast between the two could hardly be more marked. Sharing a remote beach parking in a beautiful place with a handful of other motorhomes and campervans - just a mixed bunch of people who love the outdoors - is a lovely thing, one of life's small pleasures. Conversely, packed together like sardines in a ramshackle site with three hundred fellow grey-hairs from Northern Europe is very dispiriting
Soon I was fulminating about this and that - like why do some people need vans the size of cruise ships?
Also, why are all the older males here so miserable looking? For example, the Frenchman next to us spent more than an hour watching his satellite dish rotate but seemingly never found 'Canal'; he looked evermore crestfallen as the moments of cultural disconnect ticked by stretching from minutes to hours.
Then there was Mr. Angry from Scotland. A small chap of cuboid proportions - we first encountered him as we booked-in. He became utterly outraged when the receptionist asked for his passport, "Whit! 'al bi stain thi wun night wonely." Fizzing with frustration he insisted that the desk manager unpack item by item each element of the bill for his one night stay - a princely sum of €9.40. "Thull bi wonely maysael!" he kept repeating, keen to ensure that as a solo traveller he was not being overcharged. Given his strong accent, which to my ill-educated Sassenach ear seemed a curious mash-up of Rab C Nesbit and 'Oor Wullie,' that the Portuguese staff managed to understand a word he uttered was a tribute as much to their forbearance as their skills as linguists.
Admittedly, finding a pitch is a challenge. None of them have numbers and the large site is a maze of inter-connecting tracks through the pinewoods. It's busy, so often as not gaggles of new arrivals wander about searching for a dream pitch that is level, easy to access and not so sandy that you might get bogged down. These are few and far between and there is always the risks that one of the other newbies will have filched your preferred spot by the time you have booked-in and collected the van from the car park outside the gate.
In fact our chosen pitch was still vacant when we turned up and though it appeared to be on a slope in fact proved perfectly level once we had parked. The only downside - it was about 30 metres from the nearest hook-up point - out came the cable extension.
So why bother staying here? Because the inefficiencies of the site are more than compensated by the attractions of Olhâo itself. What I said previously about the similarity between here and Isla Cristina is broadly true, but whereas the Spanish fishing port is unapologetically workaday, Olhâo, particularly on a sunny Sunday when the 'esplanada' fills with visitors and locals alike, then the place acquires a charm and vivacity that makes its Spanish neighbour seem a little dull in comparison.
We were here for the fish. Our original plan was to buy some tuna in the market but it was closed on Sundays. We searched on-line for a restaurant that had good reviews for fish cookery. We settled upon 'Prezeres' which coincidentally happened to be opposite the market. Had we read the reviews more carefully then we would have been better prepared for what happened next. Phrases like 'generous proportions' and 'filling and delicious' were the giveaway.
We both opted for tuna dishes - Gill's the traditional option accompanied by onions and potatoes, mine a skewer where tuna chunks had been wrapped in bacon, and grilled along with a giant prawn and slices of chorizo. Both were well cooked, but each plate would have been sufficient for a family of four.
Bravely we struggled on, devouring the enormous offering slowly, agreeing that however sublime the fish cookery the portions were ridiculous. Half way through our gargantuan struggle the vacant table next to us was occupied by a lone woman. Sensibly she ordered a starter, which when served was quite sufficient as a main. Quite clearly she was attempting to ignore the culinary battle going on next to her, but it was obvious she was taking a surreptitious interest in our progress. After we finally finished, a triumph of gluttony over common sense, we fell into conversation with her. We learned that she was called Sinead, haled from Drogedha in Ireland, and had flown here for a short 'winter sun' break to recover from the stresses of catering for her extended family over Christmas. She was very interested in the details of our travelling life as a few years earlier her husband had bought a motorhome but was unsure quite what to do with it. 'There's a ferry from Cork to Santander, explore Asturias and Galicia in early summer,' we suggested.
After a coffee on the waterfront overlooking the low sandy islands of Ria Formosa, we walked back to the small park where we had left the bikes. It was less than a ten minute ride back to the campsite, mainly through the warehouses and canning factories next to the deep sea harbour used by the ocean going tuna boats. It was more or less empty, the fleet must have been at sea
Tomorrow it's goodbye Portugal, hola Sevilla. A pang of sadness, the longer you stay in Portugal the more charming it it becomes. It has a quieter more introverted culture than its fiesta-loving neighbour; there is something profound and thoughtful about the place. We have no immediate plans to return to Iberia after this trip, Greece beckons next autumn, hopefully via Croatia, Montenegro and Albania. By then we will have explored more or less the entire length of Europe's Mediterranean shoreline. Then what?
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